5 Best Pendant Lights for your Dining Room: The Definitive Guide

Dining room tables are the centerpiece of every dining room. They are where your family gathers to share meals and enjoy time together.

Whether you’re hosting a formal dinner or just want to have your friends over for coffee, it’s important to have an elegant table setting.

One way to achieve this is with the perfect pendant light.

Pendant lighting fixtures offer so many benefits, including enhancing your current room decor, controlling the temperature of the light in the room (for example warm light or cool light), and most of all adding a touch of elegance.

What are the benefits of using pendant lights in a dining room? 

One of the best benefits of using pendant lights in a dining room are the different styles you can choose from to match your current decor.

You can get something elegant, modern, rustic, or whatever style suits your needs.

For example, if you have a more traditional table setting, you may want to use a more traditional style pendant light to match. This would certainly give your dining room that formal look it might be missing!

As mentioned before, pendant lights are also excellent for controlling the temperature of the light in your room.

For example, if you want warmer light in your room to create an intimate, cozy atmosphere, make sure you go for a light that can provide warm light (hint: we categorise our lights by emitting colour so you can easily find them!).

Or if you wanted a light that was cool and contemporary for dinner guests, you might look for something sleek and polished, like metal and glass.

The options are endless!

Arguably the main reason why pendant lighting is great for your dining room is because it will add elegance to your overall decor.

Having a well-placed lighting fixture over the dining table will transform your entire look into something that rivals every other room in your home.

 

The 5 best pendant lights for your dining room 

We know there are a lot of options when it comes to pendant lights, and sometimes it can be hard to decide which one is best for your needs.

But we’ve done the research for you and put together a list of our favourite pendant lights for over the dining room tables.

1. Globe Pendant Lights

Globe pendant lights are just beautiful to look at. Plain and simple! They are usually made from glass, and fully encapsulate the light bulb with just a small hole in the top to let the heat from the bulb escape.

I like globe lights as they put more emphasis on the bulb than the light itself, which is not what usually happens with home lights – so often people will look for a great light fixture, and then slap an old bulb in it as an after-thought.

You can get Globe Pendant Lights in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, so you’ll never be at a loss to find one that fits the room you’re looking to place it in – be it a small laundry room or a grand ball room!

2. Bowl Pendant Lights

When you think of the classic pendant light, what you’re imagining is more than likely a bowl pendant light. Named because the lamp shade forms a bowl shape, these can come in a variety of form factors, with some being flat, some being deep, some having a steep curve to them, and others having a gentler curve to them.

Whichever style you prefer, a bowl pendant light is one of the more common varieties of pendant light because they work in almost every home décor style!

If you’re looking to use them in a kitchen, your best bet would be metal, as these are quite sturdy while also being lightweight, which makes them perfect for a kitchen environment. But you can also get bowl lights made from acrylic, which makes them cheaper while keeping the same gorgeous style.

3. Exposed Bulb Pendant Lights 

Exposed bulbs are amazing in general. I love the old-fashioned Edison filament bulbs, and sometimes you want to show off the bulb just as much as the light itself! If this sounds like you, you should think about utilising some exposed bulb pendant lights in your next home improvement project.

In the last couple of years exposed bulbs have come back into fashion, with the bulbs seeming to get bigger and bigger. And I love it! Because of the rustic, industrial feel these kinds of lights give off, you will often see them in American Diner style restaurants – they make great restaurant lighting.

They are also great if you’re on a budget, as you don’t need to buy a shade or anything to surround the bulb (hence the name exposed!).

4. Abstract Pendant Lights

Abstract lights allow you to express yourself and your sense of interior design through your choice of light in ways that other pendant lights simply can’t.

Walk into my any model house and you’ll see the standard chandelier or hanging pendant lights, because they work well and they please everyone. And that’s great, but it can lack individualism and imagination.

That’s where abstract pendant lights come in. They allow you to express yourself through a quirky design, or a design theme that most others don’t really experiment with in their homes.

One thing to consider with these lights though are that they work better as ambient lighting than they do as the main light in a room. As well as this, they are often quite small when compared to other types of pendant light, so may not be able to illuminate a whole room as brightly as you’d like.

In our store we make sure to list the lighting area for each of our lights, so you know before you buy if the light is going to be sufficient to light up the size room you’re thinking of putting it in!

5. Multiple Pendant Lights

Multiple pendant lights are my personal favourite option, which is why I have left it until last.

As the name would suggest, this category is simply defined as combining several pendant lights together to create your own home lighting installation. It allows you to bring out your creativity when redesigning a room, and with the right interior design skills you can take an already great light and really take it to the next level.

There are many opportunities to add in an assortment of pendant lights to a room, such as in a foyer, but it really works best when you have the arrangement centred over a large object, such as a dining room table or a kitchen island.

Having them above a dining room table works so well because in most cases a dining room table is the centerpiece of the dining room, so having several lights above it captures a person’s attention as soon as they walk into the room. When done right, they almost become a big, beautiful arrow pointing down to what is I’m sure an exceptionally nice dining room table.

 

How to choose the right dining room light fixture

Before making your purchase, it’s important to note that when choosing a pendant light for your dining room, there are a few things to consider.

The first thing you need to know is the size of the fixture you need.

You don’t want a huge light if you’ve only got a small dining table - it will risk overpowering the table and emphasising its small size.

Instead, you should look for a smaller light that allows you to comfortably fit 2 or 3 together as a set, which allows for the benefits of a fixture while not taking up too much real estate. 

Also, the style of light you’ll want will depend on the number of people you typically have in your dining room.

For example, if you’re hosting large dinner parties or regularly having family dinners with more than 8 people over, you may want to go with a style that emits more light.

The last factor in choosing an appropriate light fixture is the material of the pendant light itself.

Brass and copper are popular choices because they can create warmer colours for your dining room, while stainless steel has more of a cooler aesthetic.

 

Final Words

We hope we’ve covered enough in this guide for you to feel confident in deciding on the right type of pendant light(s) for your dining room. 

If you have any further questions, feel free to email us on cavelightstore@gmail.com.

We’d be happy to help!