I love candlelight, so when we dine at the table, I always light the candles. I have sets of wooden ones, crystal, silver, Lenox, etc. These green wooden ones are on the breakfast room table most of the time, tall one is the formal table (I add others when we have company, usually the Lenox).

we use our dining room table much more in this house than previous houses and we eat by candlelight occasionally! I have several sets of candlesticks and keep 2 traditional (more formal) brass candle sticks in the dining room... I usually leave them on the table, but sometimes move them over to the server and then they'll stay there for awhile... I light them more often when I leave them on the table!

I agree, pewter candlesticks would look great on your table! though, with cats, a heavier hurricane candleholder with a larger pillar candle might be better... our cat has been known to knock (unlit!) taper candles out of the holders!

I have many candle holders and use them frequenly. Most are pewter some wrought iron. I learned not to use wood. The ones I use daily have a larger base to catch drips.

My husband was brought up to eat by candlelight, mainly because their 1700's home didn't have an electric light overhead! We use a pillar candle in a hurricane type holder every night just a habit and I always have a candle going on the island, even with the lights on! Just gives a little atmosphere. I love your glass try, hope you can find a good spot to use it.

I have always loved dining by candlelight, and so we do every night and many Fall and Winter weekend mornings for breakfast. I know that it probably sounds a bit eccentric, but it makes me happy to set a pretty table, and my family enjoys it, as well. I have quite the collection of candle holders and have pulled out some to show you.

Even our lowly Sunday Morning breakfast gets lit. This is my main dining room table centerpiece this Fall. DD gave me these lantern candleholders a couple of years ago for Christmas. Grrrr, you may have to click on the photo to actually see the lanterns- sorry!

I keep this set on the buffet in our dining room during the Fall months. I like to switch them out with the lanterns occasionally on our table. My parents received these and that plate on a stand for a wedding gift many years ago. They're very special to me.
During the Christmas Season, I pull out the silver, pewter and red candle holders. I have several different kinds:
After Christmas, I want only silver, white and blue for a while, as I'm red-and-greened out! I have quite a few of these mercury glass candle holders and love them:
These sit on the window in our dining room all year long, and I switch out the candles with the seasons or holidays. I use them a lot on my table, too:

And here's another. They're pewter and in the shape of antlers: And then Valentine's Day/Week, and back to red again:

Wow! Such wonderful inspiration! Thank you so much for your lovely descriptions and photos. You have REALLY got me wanting candles on the table now! I do have some lovely crystal candlesticks. One pair was a wedding gift to my grandparents back in the 1930s, and they are so precious that I rarely use them. I'd be sick if something ever happened to them - but I do enjoy looking at them every day, as they're prominently displayed in my china cabinet. DH bought me a pair of Waterford seahorse candlesticks:

And I really love them and use them occasionally, but they aren't something I'd leave out on the dining table for obvious (cat) reasons.

I like the Crate & Barrel black metal centerpiece - love how versatile it is - but think it may be a bit too wide and we'd be having to move it off the table to accommodate "meal" stuff. I hadn't even considered pewter but will take a look to see what's out there. I did look at Home Goods yesterday but didn't see anything that I liked well enough to buy. (And waaaaaay TMI, but a man came up behind me as I was looking and TOOTED. So obviously I had to vacate as quickly as I could. Gah.)

Anyway - back OT: Lynn, I absolutely love that you and your family enjoy breakfast by candlelight! What a genuinely NICE thing to do!

Loving these Jos. Heinrichs hammered copper pieces, but not sure I want to pay $120 for them ...

They are fairly substantial at 7" tall and 4.25" inches at the base.

I like those... and they certainly wouldn't tip very easily! one thing that drives me crazy about certain candle holders tho is the size of the hole... they're not all the same size!! (and not all candles are either! finding a good fit is key!)

Check out eBay, lots of candlesticks.

We do a couple of times a year... not enough! My 9yo son LOVES it and often asks if we can eat by candlelight. We use LED candles, so he gets them set up. We don't have nice candleholders, though... just a few small plates. Maybe I'll take him shopping with me one day to pick out a few pretties.

As an aside, is that Stickley?

pippiep, yes it is Stickley. Have had this set for a number of years but have rarely actually sat down and had a meal here. This is something I intend to change now that it's in a new environment and more readily accessible. Here's a pic of the space that also shows the china cabinet:

I just love that so many of you dine by candlelight! The thought of a 9 year old boy loving it is so heartwarming!

I'm perusing Etsy right now. I want almost everything I see. Not good. Not good at ALL.

Beautiful set! We have the Harvey Ellis cherry inlay set, and it's a shame that we hardly ever use that room! I plan to change that in our new house. (Even worse... the poor table became a collector of piles of junk until cleared off for the holidays! With table pads on it, of course.)

I love the idea of my son having fond memories of candlelight dinners as a kid, when he's an adult. We need to do this more!

Ooooh - Harvey Ellis! Be still my heart! I'd love to see photos of your room if you'd be up for sharing. And I so understand about tables becoming a "resting place" for junk, as that's how our dining table was in our previous home. The mail got brought in and BAM - there it was deposited, and there it sat sometimes for weeks before anyone bothered to go through it. (The junk mail, I mean. It's not like we just ignored the bills. ;-))

So few families have a "civilized" sit-down meal together these days, and I think it's wonderful to see it still happens.

I'm kind of in love with this. It's almost a yard long and nearly 17" wide so size-wise not much better than the glass piece we currently have on the table. But gosh, I love the lotus design. Pretty.

How do you think it would look on my table? I'm really quite interested in it, but don't want to make a mistake as it's not inexpensive. (gulp)

That is beautiful! Where is it from? Does it have feet or something to protect the table? I think it would look amazing on your table... and on mine, LOL.

Here are a couple of realtor pics of my LR/DR...

I've never known anyone else with Stickley, either online or in person. But I'm derailing the thread!

Oh, well, NOW I'm drooling! What gorgeous furniture you have! Those intricate inlays amongst the clean lines ... pitter-patter goes my heart. My parents have a couple of Harvey Ellis pieces, and I admire it greatly whenever I visit them. Aside from my folks and their modern pieces, and a couple who live in Dallas and have original Stickley pieces ($$$$$ - I can't even imagine), I don't know anyone else "in real life" who even knows what it is! Oh, I forgot about my ex as he did keep a few pieces when we split up years ago. It's exciting to meet another person who loves it and lives with it, and there are a handful of us here in this forum who do!

We have an Eastwood chair, and this set in our upstairs reading room (along with a few side tables scattered throughout the house). It's all oak, with the exception of a small round table which is cherry.

The candle holder is on Overstock.com. I wish it had a few reviews!

http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/Uttermost-Lying-Lotus-Champagne-Silver-Candleholder/8531295/product.html?refccid=WCKFYXT35DAIHISEBQFLEOQ7NQ&searchidx=11

You go ahead and order it and let me know how it looks in person! LOL! I can't tell if it has feet to protect the table ... kinda looks like it doesn't in the photo.

pippiep - what are the large framed pieces in your dining room? They look amazing!

Reviews! http://reviews.grandinroad.com/2015/62901/reviews.htm?sort=rating&dir=asc

I'm definitely on a buying freeze, as we're moving Friday.

Your furniture is beautiful! I made a point of using my living room more in the past year. I'd to have more reading nooks like yours! My husband picked out and bought all the Stickley while we were dating...I'd never heard of it before then, but I love it now!

They are framed fabrics from Indonesia. My husband lived there for a bit years ago.

Jen - re the lotus candleholder, is that shot showing 2 of them placed close together? I checked out the link and the description said set included "one single candle"

You mentioned it was almost the size of your large glass bowl.... The pic (to me) was deceiving as I thought it was all one piece.

Love using candles when dining, but often forget to light them! I have so many candle holders but have put a lot of them away. Don't know why, but I think I just got tired of them for a while and decided to go a different direction except for when it was time to get them out for Thanksgiving and Christmas or big dinners. Good reminder to go through the box and see what I have.

I like the lotus holder, but maybe you need something a little more rustic/craftsman style with your Stickley. I would be careful with your tabletop too. I add those felt bumpers or the silicone pads on just about everything. And on our breakfast table, I either have a runner, a placemat, and right now I'm using a tray in the middle.

Good job, pippie, on finding reviews for the lotus piece! It is one piece, amck, so I'm also not quite sure why it indicates that it comes with "one" candle. After reading the Grandin Road reviews though, I'm a little less keen since a couple of folks mention the fact that it doesn't sit level. I'm not going to risk scratching my table, that's for sure! I really do love the flow of that piece, but maybe I can find something with that same "feel" elsewhere. The $217 price tag made me do a double-take, as that seems like a lot to pay for a metal candle holder!

Those framed fabric pieces are outstanding, pippie. The perfect complement to your lovely furniture.

Still pondering the table top. Maybe I'll take the glass piece away and live with it "nekkid" for a few days and see if any inspiration comes to me.

Hmmm. Sometimes something is right in front of your nose, and you don't even see it there! I just realized that this fairly good-sized bowl that sits on the corner of my desk at work and holds peppermints might be perfect centered on the dining table, flanked by a pair of bronze (hammered, perhaps?) simple candle holders. I used to have the perfect holders, in fact - pretty sure they came from Pier 1 - and they were bronze-colored square ceramic "dishes" that stood on squatty pedestals. They had a very simple Asian look to them. I have no idea what became of them, and of course now I can't find anything like them online. But something along those lines (if I can find it) would be perfect. Maybe?

The candle holders I used to have looked sort of like this on top, but had little squatty pedestals down below.

Getting closer! THIS is the shape of the holders (the smaller one):

I really like the combination of the bowl and those holders with your beautiful furniture. If it's just two of you eating a meal it's much easier to deal with objects in the middle of the table. I wasn't sure if there'd be more people at dinner.

I realize I've started talking to myself at this point, but I'm going to use this as my place to post pics. Just found these on Amazon that might work with the bowl. They are 5.5" x 5.5" x 2.75", so would be a low profile for the table (and be less likely to become victims of accidental cat-knock-over).

I like the hammered look. It echoes our cabinet and china cabinet hardware.

I like that, Jen! Beautiful and practical at the same time. Plus, they work well with your furniture.

Another of my sad little mockups ... (hmmm - guess you have to click the photo to see the whole thing).

Yep, just the two of us, ceezeecz.

Thanks, Lynn! The copper colored holders are cheap too ... $15 each, so yay!

The tray that Sueb linked to from C&B is a different version of what I found at the the C&B outlet close by to us last year. As she said, I change things out depending on the season. Most nights we eat at our island rather than the dining room. There I just light a single candle and turn the pendants down. I remember my parents always dining at the kitchen table with a candle after all us kids moved out. Sweet memory.

What a beautiful table, nhbaskets! So festive, yet understated and elegant.

Now I want/need a table runner!

Something very simple - like this?

I thought about something more southwest-inspired, but I don't want to overdo it with color on the table!

We do occasionally - but usually at our large breakfast table (which in our new house sits in a small 'dining hall' instead of the kitchen as per our previous house. Our actual (rather small, circular, oak Arts & Crafts) dining table has a very low hung light that creates a romantic atmosphere of its own and it's a bit too much of a squeeze to fit candle holders as well as the crockery needed for a meal! We tend to use that table more for games of scrabble now, lol, although we do have candle holders on the nearby window sill that we light sometimes, such as last Christmas when we'd only moved in the previous week and it was just the two of us.

I really like the bowl you *found* in your office and think that the combination of that and the copper candle holders on your table will be just perfect!

I use candles but I seldom DINE by candlelight. I like to see my food clearly.

I love that sea horse candle holder (among others)!

I come from the Grand Rapids area, one of the Stickley manufacturing centers, so I grew up with it and have always been a fan! I love Arts and Crafts, and Art Deco. As for dining by candle light with kids, I have a great memory from being invited to my friends' house for an impromptu gathering for Thanksgiving one year with their three kids under ten and also one other cousin's family with two more kids. As one of the daughters "passed" the rolls precariously across the table with the napkin lining the bread basket millimeters away from the open flame of the dinner candles, my friend's husband was heard to exclaim calmly, "Remind me again why this was a good idea?" and then, "Pour me another glass of wine!" :) What can I say, we love them all and it has been a grand adventure. The oldest just started college this fall!

Oooh, I love those hammered copper stands. Those are great! I was a little suspicious of that other one for the same reason as amck2 -- the "one candle" in the description.

I use a hurricane glass or lantern instead of individual candlesticks. I have 3 young kids so this way I can use an led candle, or a real candle that can't tip. Here is one i made this summer, from sand ans shells collected from our beach vacation to the Outer Banks, NC.

Rebecca, that's a great idea! I have shells gathered on my travels that I'd like to do something similar with.

I just love the candlelit dinner memories! It really is a special thing to do, and I'm so glad that so many of you enjoy it at least on occasion.

I'm back to the drawing board with my tabletop arrangement. The pottery bowl I brought home from the office was much too small, so I've canceled the order on the hammered copper candle holders too. I've tried a number of things from around the house on the table tonight and nothing really works, so I've put the large glass piece back (it really does have a nice scale for the space), and will fret over this another day.

::sigh::

Now I want some pretty candle holders and didn't know it until this thread. We only do candles when eating out on the patio or dinner parties. I just use small crystal tea light holders inside and cheap in glass candles on the patio with the pool light on. Apparently I'm very uncool. Nice table scape eye candy gals.

You know. Jen, with a nice, chunky candle in that glass piece's center hallowed out depression, and a spot-on runner under to ground it, you might have the makings of one very amazing centerpiece. I love that glass piece, but by itself, on a table of a similar color, it loses its dramatic impact.

Lynn, what kind of runner would you put under the glass piece? I think I probably could get a big chunky candle to nestle in the center (might take some assistance from earthquake putty!). We still would have to move the piece when we dine because it takes up so much of the table, but for other times I may just leave it as the "main" table decor. I don't know that I'm going to find anything that works better, and I really would like to use the things I already have if I can find a way to be really happy with them. I didn't realize until tonight how much I like the bit of sparkle it gives that plays off the glass block window.

I don't burn candles anymore and haven't in probably 10 years. But I do have every light in the house, sans the laundry room, on dimmers. When it's just the two of us we eat at the bar and often dim the two pendant lights above us. Do the same with the chandelier over the dining room table when we have company for dinner.

you could put a candle in the glass piece and position it horizontally when you eat, but it looks like a blown/wobbly bottom, which might be more of a pita than it's worth!

I also think 2 candlestick/hurricanes look so nice positioned in the table's center when eating that that would be the look I would go for...

(for now if you want candles on the table before you find the right holders/look, find 2 coasters to place pillars on...)

I "auditioned" a glass bowl on the dining table last night that I use in the bedroom and the size was perfect. However, I'm not willing to "steal" it from the bedroom because the colors are perfect in there. It was just a cheapie from Home Goods (but is so pretty), so I might look there to see if anything of similar size and in glass strikes my fancy.

DH and I purchased the art glass piece that we presently live with at a silent auction to benefit a young girl with leukemia. Due to the cause, we paid a little more for it than we would have otherwise, and when we got it home and looked at it in the light of day we noticed a couple of chips in the glass that we didn't see during the auction. Just made me sick, and I've had a little bit of a "mental block" against the piece ever since then. Silly, but it is what it is.

Jen, can you post a link to the copper holders? I've gone to Amazon and typed in the above but only get tall ones. These are perfect for my daughter's table. I bring a gift each thanksgiving and you've solved me searching time. Thank you.

Sure, Yayagal! But hurry, only 4 left in stock!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0088AJB3G?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_

ty all ordered

Really only on holidays. Since dinner is usually in the kitchen, I have a candle which sits on a plate on the peninsula, and i'll put it on the table, and remove the table decoration. Nothing special, but it's nice. I also like to use placemats or large square napkins, but never paper plates, except for birthday cake and they're 'themed'. Cloth napkins are only for the holidays because of ironing, yuk. I do use the nicer Chinet ones for everyday.

Still haven't found candle holders that I like (brought some home to audition but am taking them back), but found this metal bowl at HG that I love. It adds a bit of shine but the exterior of the bowl has a matte finish that keeps it from being too blingy. We are going to use it on the table as centerpiece instead of the big glass piece for the time being. I also tried a runner beneath it but it just felt like overkill. I like seeing the gleam of the wood better.

That is very pretty!