I worried about this, too, when we were picking out our pendants. Our island is only 63" across, and we wanted two pendants across this area, not across the long way. Our pendants' glass shades are about 6" high and 10" across.

When we were making this decision, I saw someone else's photos on this board. They had similar pendants and that made me feel better about the decision.

meg711 - thank you very much for posting and providing a photo. You are right - I am worried about a 10" or 11" diameter shade being too large and overwhelming the kitchen, but your 10 inch diameter shades look great. Our penisula is 7.5 feet long and 3 feet wide, and we will have two pendants. (They aren't centered over the whole peninsula, but are rather "centered over the right two thirds of the peninsula, with the left 1/3 being closest to the wall, if that makes sense!)

anyone else have thoughts on (and/or photos of) a larger pendant light?

Meg - these are beautifully simple pendants. I'm still shopping for clean, simple ones with 100 or 150 watts. Do you remember what the brand of these is?
Thanks!

that was my dilemma too and I went with 2 8" which I think are going to be a bit smaller but they are tall so I thin it all evens out. 12" were too big when I added the height into play (no 10" in the ones I liked) I think its all a matter of proportion. Meg's fit perfectly.

kpk, sounds like you and i are in the same situation with 2 pendants over the penninsula. I have been looking for mini-pendants because I don't want them to impose themselves into the room too much.

Another question for you....I also have 8 ft. ceilings. How long do you plan to make the pendants? This is another issue I'm having problems deciding.

I read somewhere (can't remember where) that the outside edge of your pendant should be about 12" from the edge of the island to be "appropriately-sized".

Who knows if that's true, but based on that we ordered 13.25" diameter pendants for our 40" wide island. The bottom of the pendants are around 30" from the countertop. We do have a very long island, but we think the size and height are perfect for us.

Here is a link that might be useful: Forte Lighting

Thanks for the posts everyone.

jessie21,
I think there are various ways to figure it out, but it all depends on how tall the people are in your house, really! The recommendations I have seen say to go 30-40" ABOVE the countertop. If you go on the rejuvenation.com website and select a pendant light then there'sd a tool you can use to detemrine the length by inputting your ceiling height, etc. Also, a great tip that I am going to try after work today is to buy some balloons and string, and blow up the balloons and tack the string to the ceiling to hang them at different height. You can determine your ideal length by doing this exercise especially if you have people sit (or pretend to sit if you don't have seating yet, like me) at the peninsula (or island) counter and then stand in various places in the kitchen as well and find the perfect length. Have you DH or any other people in your house there to detemrine the right length based on their height/ability to see. You want to avoid having anyone craning their necks around the fixtures to see into the kitchen and beyond the peninsula...

HTH

tklahr, I'll try to see if that 12" formula works! Thanks for the tip.

Anyone else have any photos of pendants that are LARGER than 8"?

Thanks!

kpk, Thank you for that suggestion! duh! I might just use some rolled up contruction paper to simulate shades. lol.

Our pendants are about 10" wide at their widest point. The one over the island is far too high at 48" from counter (9' ceiling), but that's what happens when the GC says he'll leave extra wire for later adjusting, but then doesn't tell the sub contractor. I was getting used to it, but now that I look at the photo, I want to change it again:

Thanks raynag,

Those pendants are by Besa Lighting. They're called Tessa. You can't really tell when they're on but the glass is actually a swirly mocha. Besa has all kinds of shapes and all colors of glass, so I'm sure you'll find something you like.

As far as the height of the pendants, the lower edge of our pendants are 37 1/2" above the island counter. We chose that height because we're tall and didn't want the shades at eye level. We didn't take into account what a seated person would see so, if I had to do it over again, I would hang them a couple inches lower so someone sitting at the island doesn't see the exposed lightbulb.

I've switched to smaller appliance or ceiling fan lightbulbs but it's still a problem. Depending on the shape of your shade, or if your light is uplighting, then you might not have to worry about this issue.

I love the balloon mock-up idea! Just don't forget where the actual light bulb will be.

Here is a link that might be useful: Besa Lighting -- Tessa

Thanks, Meg, I'll take a look at the website. Nobody around here seems to carry it.

LOL - my island is 25" wide. If I followed the 12" rule, I would have a 1" wide pendant. Somehow, this sounds like a rather silly formula to me.

Okay, I have to rave about the balloons mock-up!! I bought a package for 1.99 and some string and brought it to the house at lunch. All the guys thought I was a little nutso, but it worked like a charm! We blew up three to about 10" in diameter and hung 2 over the peninsula and 1 over the sink to simulate our fixtures. I determined that the pendants at 10" would be large, but would look great in the space. They will be 28" in overall length. I determined that if we use a pendant fixture over the sink it will be 21" in overall length, or, the balloon also looked good as a flush mount! So, either way the balloons really were easy to do and worked well.
Good Luck~
kpk :)

Concerning the fixture dimensions, when I was looking for fixtures, I found several manufacturers whose published dimensions didn't make sense. Why don't you contact your fixture mfg directly to ask? I found their web site (link below). They are located in Houston.

My peninsula is 110" long (bar height step-up behind counter) and we have 3 bar stools. I installed 3 pendants, 6" in diameter. They are spaced 20" apart, leaving 14" between shades. I couldn't have used anything wider and I would probably have been better off with narrower, but I wanted 100 watts and 1 fixture per stool, so it is what it is.

Love your fixture choices, by the way, and hope you can make one of them work for you. If you use the 11" wide fixtures and space them evenly above your 90" peninsula, you would have about 19" between shades, which should look fine. With 8' ceilings, I think that would give you plenty of overlap with the light cone to adequately light the entire space. You would have some flexibility with the spacing, perhaps leaving a little more or less at the ends, and still do fine.

Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Visual Comfort

kpk, lol over your flush mount balloon!!

I should take a photo of the balloons! I told the electrician to go ahead and wire them in on dimmers...