Pendant lights: Tips and tricks

This is sponsored content for Lighting Style.

Pendant lights have far more shapes, colours and designs than any other type of light - and for very good reason. With relatively little cost and effort, they provide amazing flexibility in form and illumination.

Here are our top tips and tricks to make sure your pendant lighting is beautiful and pragmatic.

The most important thing about pendant lights is not to hang them too low. Depending on what it is hung above, the bottom rim of the pendant should be at least 2.1 metres above the floor, or one metre above the kitchen island or table.

If you are hanging pendants above sofas or a dining room, glare can be a problem. You can avoid this by using dimmers, globes with low brightness or frosted globes.

All indoor lights, but specially pendants, should be connected to dimmers. This will ensure that the light is perfect any time of the day.

A magic trick of the trade which nearly all interior designers use is to hang pendants in a cluster of three, particularly above kitchen islands. To make this a really interesting focus point, use three slightly different colour or sized pendants.

Light globes and LED lights come in three shades of white: warm white, cool white and daylight white. Pendant lights must always be warm white or the light will feel washed out. Your electrician might not look for this, so take care.

You can make small rooms appear much larger by bouncing the light from pendant lights off the floor, walls and the ceiling. To do that ensure your lights are bright and the rim is wide angle.

There are a few spots to avoid hanging pendant lights including directly in front of a TV screen or sofas. If you're hanging them above a dining room table, make sure the light will not be directly in peoples' eyes.

If you are hanging pendants above a table or a kitchen island make sure the diameter of the pendant is smaller than the surface it is hung above.

If you have a very high ceiling, or are not sure exactly how high you would like your pendant to hang, buy one that has a long cord length. Many pendant lights are three metres in length (which can be adjusted down but never up).

For central areas such as living rooms and dining rooms install a beautiful designer pendant light. The investment will be worth it, as this will not only provide illumination but be a talking piece in its own right.

Contrast looks great and is very in. So if your room has white furniture look for black pendants.

Far too many people use pendants as their only source of light which is a bad idea. Lighting should be done in layers with pools of subtle shadows, so you should include other lights such as downlights, table lamps, LED strips or wall sconces.

The one weakness of pendants is that they are generally central, so corners may have low lighting. Make sure you allow for this in your lighting plan.

Some pendants have interlocking fabrics and shades that cast dramatic patterns. This is particularly effective in corridors, hallways and entry rooms.

For the largest range of pendant lights in Australia, see Lighting Style.

This is sponsored content for Lighting Style.