New Homeowner’s Guide to Dining Room Lighting

Dining Room Light Fixtures

Finding the perfect dining room light fixtures depends a lot on the type of space you have and your preferred style of home décor. While chandelier size and pendant placement are crucial, Color Cord Company wants to provide you with dining room lighting ideas that will inspire your own personal creativity. Explore different options for ambient, task, and accent lighting and discover how to navigate the practical elements of planning and measuring with a little help from our experts. Read the Color Cord Company guide today to get started!

The Basics

The classic lighting plan for any dining room usually consists of a chandelier above your table as well as some wall sconces around the sideboard and additional lighting on two opposing walls. Upgrading all of these dining room light fixtures with a dimmer allows you additional versatility and personalization. The combined lighting in your dining room should be between 3,000 and 6,000 lumens to ensure comfortable illumination at all times.

Where to Start

The main focus of any dining space is obviously the table where you’re going to be sitting, chatting, eating, and entertaining. Placing dining room light fixtures above the table provides both the ambient and task lighting for this room and allows you to experiment with layering unique types of fixtures for the same space. We recommend making your showstopping conversation starting fixture the ambient lighting for the space and choosing more subtle and recessed lights for your task and accent lighting.

The main focus of any dining space is obviously the table where you’re going to be sitting, chatting, eating, and entertaining. Placing dining room light fixtures above the table provides both the ambient and task lighting for this room and allows you to experiment with layering unique types of fixtures for the same space. We recommend making your showstopping conversation starting fixture the ambient lighting for the space and choosing more subtle sconces and recessed lights for your task and accent lighting.

Lumens and Temperature

When you’re choosing dining room light fixtures, you should be aware of the paint or wallpapers on the walls. The darker your wall treatments, the less light will reflect around you, and the brighter your bulbs need to be. Modern dining room light fixtures are available in many different lumens and temperatures to provide unique customization options for any type of space.

Outside the Dining Room

Many people also find that their dining space is surrounded by windows or glass doors, which in the evenings reflect the diners like a mirror. Avoid this reflective problem when you light something outside of the dining room to provide an additional focal point beyond the reflection in the glass. Whether it’s the patio outside or a tree in your yard, give your guests something extra to look at, just be sure your fixtures are rated for outdoor use so they’ll continue to shine, even through inclement weather.

Types of Fixtures

The three main types of dining room light fixtures you should choose from include pendants, chandeliers, and flush mounts.

Pendants

Many people like to replace the traditional chandelier above their table with a more modern dining room light fixture — the pendant light. Combining three, four, or even five of these drop lights using a multi-port pendant light can help you substantially illuminate larger spaces while creating a statement centerpiece and focal point in the room.

Chandeliers

Chandeliers used to mean classic branched candelabras with faux candle bulbs or plenty of crystal, but today, you can find unique dining room lighting ideas that utilize chandeliers in new ways. While you should make sure that your chandelier’s diameter is between half to two-thirds the length of your table to provide adequate illumination, the shape and structure is up to you. Build your own barn beam light fixture for a rustic display or go bohemian with plenty of raffia and bamboo.

Flush-Mounts

Smaller spaces or casual eating nooks definitely benefit more from flush mounted lighting than from massive chandeliers. Rooms with a low ceiling height won’t feel crowded when you install flush or semi-flush dining room light fixtures that hang down just a couple of inches.

Throwing Shade

Since you’re designing your modern dining room light fixtures with Color Cord Company, you have a massive collection of shades and cages to explore. Check out this list of different materials for more dining room lighting ideas.

Linen

Shades made of fabric and other natural materials change the glow of your bulbs and create an inviting ambiance in your dining space. If you want to create a brighter light, opt for beige or white shades. Looking for a dim, romantic feeling? Choose darker shades for your dining room lighting fixtures that reflect less light.

Metal

Metal shades or cages tend to focus light downward and are the best choice for task and accent lighting. Use these subtle options for lights by the sideboard or to illuminate accent décor.

Glass | Clear or Smoky

Glass shades can brighten your ambient light and illuminate your entire space. We recommend pairing a clear glass shade with a vintage filament light bulb — like an Edison bulb. You can also opt for a smoky glass that provides plenty of light with a more diffused glow.

Paper

Paper is a very unique choice as a dining room lighting idea because it looks and acts like a linen shade, but even more dramatically changes the tone of a room. Color Cord Company offers origami-inspired paper shades in five different hues to help you customize your space.

Your Measurements

When it’s time to measure your dining room light fixtures, there are a few simple rules you can follow. For the diameter of your lighting fixture, add up the width and length of your dining area and convert it into inches. If you have a room that is 10x10 feet, simply add 10 and 10 to get a light fixture that should be 20 inches in diameter.

The length of your lighting fixture is even simpler to calculate. Just let your fixture hang down until it’s about 30 inches from the surface of your table. This allows you to fill your space up to the ceiling and still provides enough room for diners to interact comfortably. If math isn’t your jam, we encourage you to think outside of the box, and get in touch with us with any questions along the way!

Get Started Today!

Color Cord Company wants you to let your creativity shine! When it comes to our dining room light fixtures, we have tons of examples and ideas to inspire your own vision. Start shopping today to create something that is uniquely yours.