How high are your pendants? What's the best formula?.

11 years ago

My pendants are to be hung tomorrow over my island and my ceilings are 8 feet. My contractor showed me what 30 inches would look like and I think it would annoy me. I'm 5'9" and 30 inches ( to the bottom of the fixture) over the island was level with my eyes. Is there a rule of thumb? If you could do it again would you go an inch or two higher or lower?

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Comments (8)

breezygirl
11 years ago
Typically pendants should be hung 28 to 34 inches above the countertop, or 72 inches above the floor.

The ones over my peninsula are 32" and that seems a tad too high for me. If I can talk DH into crawling up there and figuring out how to lower them, I will.

For me, it's more the proportion of the pedants (including cord) to open space underneath that I don't like. I'm 5'8" with 91.5" ceilings.
chicgeek
11 years ago
I anguished over this too! We just installed ours 2 weeks ago. The pendants came with connectors to adjust them to different heights, depending on your ceiling height. The bottoms of our fixtures are 34" from the countertop. I'm 5'7" and hubby is 5'11". They are perfect for us-don't get in our sight line at all.
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badgergal
11 years ago
I have an 8 ft ceiling height and 3 pendants over my island. My island also contains my main sink. I didn't want taller people using the sink to feel like the pendant above it was right in front of their eyes so I hung that pendant so that the bottom of it was 36'' above the sink. The other 2 pendants are 30 inches from the countertop. I guess I was afraid to hang all 3 at 36 inches because that was not the "recommended" height. I like my lights at the two heights but think it would have looked fine to have all three at 36". Place your pendants at the height that is comfortable for you and don't worry about them being couple inches or more higher then what "they" tell you is acceptable.
lazy_gardens
11 years ago
Above eye level for the TALLEST cook, so that person isn't staring at a lightbulb when they approach the island. Shorter cooks will not have a problem with a higher light.

In a house with 6-foot cooks, that puts the bulb at 5'10" or more off the floor. Dunno where that puts it compared to the counter.
running_mom
Original Author
11 years ago
Great. That helps. Thank you.
Ann Scheley
11 years ago
The bottom of my pendants are 34 1/2" above the countertops. I am very happy with the heighth. We have a connected fam rm with a tv so we wanted to be able to watch the tv from the stove without the pendants interfering. The ceilings are 9ft.
Debbi Branka
11 years ago
My DH is 6'1" and I am 5'2". I didn't want the pendants in his line of vision, so I measured from the ceiling (8' tall) down to where he said was above his sight line. Then I ordered my pendants 27" long (from ceiling). Not sure how much space that is from bottom of pendant to top of counter, but 27" from ceiling is perfect. I ordered 32" from ceiling to go over the lower table part of the island.

A thought for everyone who says the height won't matter for short people. The pendants being this tall, for me a shorty, I see the lightbulbs and they are glaring at me. I don't like that part. We had to find special really short bulbs (we use CFLs) so they didn't glare against the white inside of the pendant globes.
Annie Deighnaugh
11 years ago
Ours are at 6'.