Only if you need them for lighting? We have an area that some would have put pendants but we don't need lighting there. So if you have recessed lighting above, than you don't need them IMHO.

You could do recessed or close-to-ceiling lighting instead. Pendants are a more decorative choice, but they are still overhead so they are not a "different" kind of lighting from ceiling lighting functionally, compared to under cabinet task lighting which tends to be lower than eye level and in front of you.

There are slight differences in pendant lighting vs. ceiling lighting because of their relative positions in 3-D space, but either will suffice.

Not only do pendants provide good work light for an island, they also provide decorative content and sometimes color that can be needed. If yours is a more plain style, like the popular Shaker, then some prominent decorative accents can go a long way to personalize the space and add in a bit of oomph. Those pendants have great personality and would add a lot to almost any kitchen!

While I agree with GD, but I have seen more islands w/o pendants than with for some reason and they looked just fine. So they may be desirable but are not *necessary*. Really depends on your interior design. I would go with my *gut feeling* if I were you.

DH recently installed mine. I've got 3. One over the sink and 2 over the island. I love them. I think it really makes a difference in this kitchen. The recessed lights give general lighting, but the pendants bring the light lower and brighten up the work area.

That being said, I've owned 3 previous kitchens without pendants and I'm still alive to tell the tale.

By the way, my pendants are "vintage"circa 1970's. I bought them from craigslist, gave them a bit of paint as they were all weird, non matching brassy shades. I love that they're unique.

If your problem is, widen your search net. You might stumble onto something else you like. Or you could always put in a recessed fixture and covert it down the road. New stuff comes out all the time, there may be something similar you like.

Just throwing out options.

Good luck.
Kathe

ayerg73, I really like those pendants and think they'll look great -- if you can find them from a different source online or as others have mentioned, finding similar ones shouldn't be too much of a problem. I have looked at gazillions of pendants and remember seeing similar ones. I'll see if I can find something and pass it on.
BTW, we are fully demolished and underway with no problems -- hope yours is going well too! Cheers!

Thanks for the ideas, everyone.

I do really like them as well. I did a little digging and found that it's just the largest ones (14" diameter) that are impossible to get. Kichler told our salesman that it's a manufacturing issue. No one has them anywhere.

Because we have a pretty dark kitchen, I was hunting for 100 watt fixtures to ensure that there was enough light over the island. That's what these are. I could go down to the next size (12" diameter), which are 75 watts each. Do you guys think that's going to be enough light for an island that size?

clarygrace - glad to hear that things are going well. Here too. YAY for no surprises during demo! I hate to jinx myself, but I'm pretty happy with the contractor. Showed up exactly on time, took a 30 min lunch and called me before he left. The house was as clean as it could be and they got a ton done. Maybe this won't be quite as bad as I was making it out to be in my head!

I love those pendants. I agree with trying to find them somewhere.

What is the brand and model number, if I may ask?

Those are really nice looking! I like them.

That said, we opted to forgo pendants. We really, really wanted a ceiling fan in our kitchen, despite our electricians protestations that "nobody does ceiling fans anymore" and "wouldn't you rather have some nice pendants?" Well, these nobodies wanted a ceiling fan (we use it on warm nights and are sooooo happy we have it).

We felt our kitchen would look too busy with both pendants and a ceiling fan. I also wasn't enamored at the thought of having pendants in my line of sight when looking across our island, which would be pretty much most of the time, given the layout of our kitchen.

So, IMO, they are certainly not necessary, but if you want them, like them, and they will work for your space, then you should have them. :-)

We went without pendants as well, as we wanted a clean line of sight across our island.

I'm not a huge fan of pendants in general, but I like those!

red lover - the pendants are Kichler's Sayre Collection. These are # 42438. They come in ORB and Antique Pewter. They have 3 sizes total. The large ones will not be in until well into the summer.

My GC just stood in front of the pendants we have now and showed me how easy it would be for him to hit his head on them if he were working there. I'm wondering if we should opt for just extra recessed there since we only have 8 ft to work with.

cat mom & sas95 - would you mind showing me your kitchen without the pendants? :)

BTW, cat_mom, kudos to you for sticking up for what you want! We have ceiling fans in just about every room in the house except the kitchen and we love them. Who cares what other people are doing?!

Sure!

Showing the ceiling fan:

Some time after those pics were taken, we added some stuff to the tops of some of the cabs:

Here's a picture of our pendantless kitchen in its almost-done state.

Thanks!! That helps me visualize.

cat_mom - I love that fan! Very cool!

sas95 - beautiful backsplash. I think I've drooled over your splash before because I remember tracking down those tiles!

Thanks ayerg73! I've told the story here before about how our electrician insisted that he "only does high end kitchens" and "none of them have ceiling fans" as part of his spiel on why we should have him install pendants, not a ceiling fan. Well, this high end (ish) kitchen was going to have a ceiling fan!

Then, after we first saw our fan on display in a lighting store, and showed him a brochure (we had originally planned to put another Casablanca fan in the new kitchen), he actually said "oh, that's why you want to put in a ceiling fan, because you found a really cool ceiling fan.". It took every ounce of willpower in me to hold my tongue and not say, "no, you dip___! We went out and found a really cool ceiling fan because we really wanted a ceiling fan."

We went 15 yrs with no pendants over the island. So I can't imagine why they have to be necessary, unless you need that direct overhead task light. We just put pendants up this year, and they look great, and provide nice direct light. So I guess it's personal preference. BTW, I love the ones you've picked out and hope you can get them.

cat_mom - my ceiling fans aren't even really cool ones and I still like to have them. Maybe someday I can upgrade? :) It's sad that some contractors can only see what's in style at the moment instead of doing what the client wants.

Thanks everybody for all of the input. I've decided to go ahead and get the smaller pendants of the same style. They are in stock and I should have them next week.

BTW - my DH was pretty proud that all of you liked his choice! I think they will probably be his favorite part of the whole kitchen since he picked out something all of the "gardenwebbers", as he affectionately calls you all, really liked!

I think you just need to make sure you have enough lighting, whether it's pendants or not. We have recessed lighting with 65W bulbs and it's plenty bright over the island. As much as I love beautiful glass pendants, we chose not to put them in when we re-did the kitchen. The long axis of our island points to the wall where the range and hood are, but it is not centered on the stove. Close, but not quite. If we had put pendants in centered over the island, it would have emphasised the non-alignment with the range hood.

Love the pendants you chose. Hope you find them.

I love the look of pendants. I wouldn't ixnay them because they're on back order.

We have a ceiling fan instead of pendants too. It seemed to me that many pendants were likely to date faster than anything else in our kitchen. (Also we wanted the fan for other reasons.)

I say go with pendants only if you can find ones that make your heart sing~ You love the ones that are on terminal back order.....do you have others that you love equally well? I wouldn't get pendants just to have pendants. There are plenty of other lighting options. I've never had pendants and decided to place two over a short penninsula....IF I could find the *right* ones. I tell you...I've looked at THOUSANDS of pendants ..I've bought, installed, removed and returned several because they weren't right. I was *just about* ready to tell the electrician to rewire for recessed lights and then I found them. Don't do it unless you find the right ones~

I don't like pendants personally, but needed lighting over my peninsula where I do all my prep, so I went with track lighting with a flexible track. The halogen lights are small yet wonderfully bright for my aging eyes and I can point them exactly where I need them.

cat_mom,

Where did you get that fan???

It's a Matthews Fan (link below). We got ours from Lighting by Gregory in NYC (there is/was also a location in nearby NJ).

Ours is the Vent Bettina in polished chrome with the mahogany blades. We had seen it on display in the polished chrome, but had planned to get it in the brushed nickel. We didn't love the bn sample, and the pc fan we had seen on display was so pretty and shiny (!), so we knew we had to get the fan in pc.

It works really well, and works better and better each year (quieter, too) as the motor breaks in. We love it!

(It is so coming with us if we ever have to move!)

Here is a link that might be useful: Matthews Fans

If you have a fixture rated for 75 W and want more light output from it, you can always put in a CFL or LED lamp. They put out a lot more light than incandescents for the same watts, so you should be able to get plenty of light even from lower rated fixtures. That said, I think two 75 W lamps over the island is more than enough, probably too much. A poster recently complained about having a spotlight effect on her peninsula from two 100-watters, and I suggested she take them down to 40s. Depending on the distance from the work surface and how the fixture directs the light, 100 W could really be overwhelming.

Cat_mom, I've always loved your kitchen (one of my favorite backsplashes ever), but I don't think I had ever seen a wide shot with the ceiling fan. It is pretty awesome, and I think I'm going to bookmark the manufacturer for use in a future "Design Around This."

I saw that, too, cawaps. It made me laugh because I was so worried about not having enough light until I read that. My fixture does have a Fresnel Lens diffuser, so I'm not sure how that's going to affect the light - hopefully soften in quite a bit.

I ordered 3 x 75 watts and we can always put lower wattage in there if we need to, but I didn't want to take a chance of not having enough. I hadn't thought of led - good idea!

There was a tiny snafu with the island and now it's nearly 12 feet long. I hope it doesn't look like it's own continent, but it's too late to correct it at this point. At least I know it will be well lit!

We put quite a lot of recessed lighting in too - just went over with GC the other day. So, we are going to have LOTS of light. I guess I'm a little paranoid because the kitchen was so stinking dark before.

Awesome!

Thnk you, cat_mom!

Another Q:

What did you not like about BN finish?
Was it too dull?

Thanks cawaps! 5 years post-reno and we still love our backsplash, ceiling fan, the entire kitchen...., too!!!

eleena, always glad to pay it forward to GW/THS!

I think we mostly didn't love the color itself--looked kind of brownish (muddy?) maybe. Don't exactly remember, but I do recall that it was definitely had a different color-tone than our SS faucet and appliances. It was also a much duller, flatter finish, too, than the BN handles we used on our cabs. We didn't like it nearly as much as the PC.

We were a bit hesitant about choosing a different metal finish than we used throughout the rest of the kitchen, but we decided it would just add its own special look to the kitchen, and it would be okay to mix and match finishes here and there. It really looked sooooo pretty (on display) in the PC, we couldn't get that image out of our minds!

Ayerg- found them and love them. We will be selling our house eventually and I'm thinking about updating the lighting in my kitchen before it goes on the market.

What are you doing above your table?

I looked at the other color in that pendant and it just wasn't as pretty.

Your plan looks great. Thanks.

Thanks red_lover!

Here's our fixture for over the table. Not quite as modern, but I think they work together.

Murray Feiss F2496

Very nice. Thanks!

I just found your pendants here in Canada. 3 sizes. Google "universal lighting" (Toronto) The webbsite says that they have 3 sizes. Maybe you can check it out if you are sill interested in them. I did not check to see if they were in stock.

Just re-read your post and did you say that you wanted 3 14" pendats? How big is your island?

I like our peninsula pendants but DH likes them more, at least he likes them on high beam more. I am very very glad that we have a dimmer on them. (There are days when I almost need an eyeshade because we're disagreeing and he's got them on high beam.) I do like them for task lighting on the working side of the peninsula but not when I'm not actually working on the peninsula, so I also appreciate having them on a separate switch from the ceiling lights.

I wish they were a tad closer to ceiling but these are the kind that come with a fixed rod so there weren't options to shorten them.

I agree that pendants do add some design aspects that benefit many kitchens, esp. those with a lot of recessed lighting.