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 layered lighting, including ambient, task, and accent lighting, to 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 dining room pendant light 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 add exterior lighting outside 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 match your dining room pendant light fixtures and 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.

1. 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.

2. 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 are up to you. Build your own barn beam light fixture for a rustic display, or go bohemian for your dining room pendant light fixture with plenty of raffia and bamboo.

3. 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 shade 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. This type of diffusion depends on how opaque the material is. 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 tend to focus light downward and are the best choice for task and accent lighting. Use these subtle options for dining room pendant light fixtures by the sideboard or to illuminate accent décor. Metallic accents also lend an industrial feel to your space, especially in natural metal colors. If you’d like to incorporate metals with a more subtle air to match the rest of your decor, consider elegant pieces from the Handspun Collection or Boutique Collection that utilize rust, pine, ochre, slate, and linen hues.

Glass or Acrylic

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.

To dial up the ambience and relaxing luminosity, our acrylic globe collection offers different size options for a variety of fixtures, perfect for any space where you want a subtle but effective statement light. These shades are suitable for both indoor and outdoor use, furthering their versatility brownie points if you’re looking for outdoor dining lighting ideas.

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 dining room pendant 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 with an oversized light fixture 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!

DIY vs. Professional installation

At Color Cord, it’s always been our mission to make creative lighting design accessible to everyone. Whether it’s lighting for design trade professionals or individual homeowners and DIYers, we love supporting anyone who wants to revamp their home with lighting. If you’re ready to do it all yourself, we recommend the following resources to explore some of the essentials, including:

• A Comprehensive Guide to Wiring Sockets
• Shade Compatibility
• HOW TO: Install a Cord Stay
• What is Tinning?

However, if you have any concerns about installing your own dining room light fixtures or are planning on any extensive changes that involve hardwiring new fixtures, we recommend talking to an expert. While an electrician may have higher upfront costs and require some scheduling, they bring a lot of experience and security to the table. They ensure that all installations meet electrical codes, guarantee the safety of the installation, and provide insurance against installation and maintenance risks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Still have questions about choosing or installing dining room light fixtures? Review our answers to the most common questions below, or contact us to learn more.

What is the best type of lighting for a dining room?

We’ve just given you an overview of the different types of light fixtures, but there is always more to learn. 

Here are some of the most common dining room light fixtures, along with some pros and potential cons for their use in this space.

• Pendant Lights: These light fixtures hang down lower from the ceiling, which can be especially useful when trying to fill vaulted spaces. A dining room pendant light fixture can be versatile, as there are so many shapes, colors, and materials to explore, but one single pendant light may not offer as much illumination as you’d like if you have a larger living room. If you’re trying to illuminate a large table or island, you may want to increase the amount of pendant lights in your space, explore multi-port chandeliers, or get creative with asymmetrical cords to cluster your light fixtures in a unique way. Note that our cloth covered cord does make it easy to change the length your light extends’ from the ceiling.

• Chandelier: As showstopping pieces, chandeliers are meant to be the focal point of any room. When you use a chandelier in the dining room, it will impact future design styles used throughout the room. These dining room light fixtures offer amazing ambient light while providing stunning aesthetics. However, they can be slightly oversized for smaller spaces. You can build a custom chandelier to fit your measurements or opt for dining room lighting ideas that prioritize intimate spaces.

• Flush & Semi-Flush: This lighting style is the perfect choice for compact spaces, as it offers a slimmer silhouette to maximize the space between your ceiling and dining room table. If you have lower ceilings or higher tables, you can use the flush mounted dining room light fixture to add interest to your space without making it feel small. They also simplify care and maintenance, making them easy to clean and update.

The last question that needs answering is whether you should opt for hardwired or plug-in fixtures. The answer is… it depends! Do you have access to a junction box? Then, hardwired is the answer. If you don’t and would rather not, you may need to rely on outlets to power your fixture and use swag hooks or cord stays to create clean lines for your cords.

How big should a light fixture be over a dining room table?

While we love getting creative and are not terribly strict about so-called rules, here are some pro tips for room size recommendations:

• Rooms Under 10 x 10 Ft: Your dining room light fixture should measure 17-20” wide
• Room Sizes 12x12 & 14x14 Ft: An ideal dining room pendant light fixture is 22-27” wide
• Rooms Over 14x14 Ft: Modern dining room light fixtures measure 24-36” wide

What is the ideal height to hang a dining room light fixture?

Ceiling Height Rules:

• 8” Ceilings: Explore flush-, semi-flush, and chandelier fixtures
• 9” Ceilings: Consider chandeliers and pendants that hang 12-18” from the ceiling
• 10” or More: Chandeliers and pendant lights can extend down 20-30”

How many lumens do I need for a dining room?

The amount of lumens appropriate for each room depends on room size and decorative elements in the space. Determine the illumination intensity you want, the color of the walls, and the light placement to discover the appropriate lumen measurement. Darker rooms, higher ceilings, and off-center placement require more lumens to light your space.

Once you know how many lumens you need, you can start to answer whether you need modern dining room light fixtures with incandescent or LED bulbs to determine the best bulb to provide the lumens you want.

Should dining room lights be on a dimmer?

Dimmers have always been about adding flexibility and mood to the lighting design of your space. When you put your dining room light fixtures on a dimmer, you can set the vibe as you see fit, creating an energized space while cooking and an intimate atmosphere for eating. You can also enjoy a more energy-efficient kitchen, as you can adjust the lighting based on the time of day or what activity is happening in the space.

When you have multiple light sources in the same kitchen or dining area, you can add a dimmer for each one to control the light levels completely independently.

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.