We have a similar situation with our kitchen table. Would love some good ideas.

FWIW, when I called lighting companies to discuss this, LBL thought this was "no problem." The fixtures are held in the track by a screw. Simply unscrew and move. The person at WAC Lighting was rather skeptical. There are clearly details to be worked out. Depending on the length of track, there may be track supports in the way in certain areas... Our architecture firm is going for it, likes the idea. With good planning, we feel this will work.

I wanted to report back, Margaret, that I've been to a local lighting store that believes my moveable chandelier idea will work quite well -- but especially well if I choose a Bruck track. Their fixtures a incredibly simple to move. I think I was looking at their "Via" system (haven't gotten the bid and specs. back from them yet, but given what I saw, and what I can see online about Bruck's systems, I'm pretty sure I'm right). The adapters for pendants look like this:

The "clip" at the top attaches to the track, and at the showroom it was quite simple to clip and unclip various fixtures. The pendant obviously would be installed at the bottom of the adapter. We are considering the Aurora pendant, which looks like this:Our lighting consultant was a bit concerned about this fixture because it is designed to project watery shadows on the wall. Nice for a restaurant or romantic meal, perhaps, but not for every day. On the other hand, he believes that if we use a frosted bulb, the shadows will go away. (IF YOU KNOW DIFFERENTLY, HOUZZERS, LET ME KNOW!) The other thing we need to consider is the size of the fixture. It's about 4" in diameter, pretty small. If we use 5 of them at staggered heights, though, I still think they're enough for what is a relatively small room. In terms of light output, surely they are enough. Each fixture uses a 50w halogen bulb. (We will have dimmers but also likely some recessed lights in the space.) When the table seats six, the lights would probably look like this:And when the table is opened to seat 10, the lights would probably look like this:So this will definitely involve fixture-moving when we're shifting the table... but it does use the space efficiently and graciously, I hope.

Comments?

Thanks for the update! I hope it works great for you,

ntrainer, I looked in to a similar situation not long ago. We're building a lake house with a combined living-dining-kitchen. In our situation, the placement of the dining table is not fixed. It could be located in various places in the general dining zone, plus like your situation, the center will depend on whether it's set up for the two of us or whether we have all three leaves in the table because we're having company. Because open concept living is so common, I thought there would be lots of lighting solutions for this scenario. But I really did not get any good answers. At one time we also thought of using track lighting, and moving it as needed! But, we did not pursue that option because our space has a cathedral ceiling, and it became too complicated for a casual lake house situation, so we're going with fixed pendants. Like Margaret I will be interested in seeing how this works out for you, and I wish you good luck!

Wondering how this turned out and if you have photos of the finished area... we need a similar solution.

Ntrainer, nice work! Question: can one use any pendant with the track? We've got some funky lights from Mexico that I'd like to install your way.

Well, I’d check with the manufacturer of the track about that. Usually the tracks are made to work specifically with “their” pendants, but perhaps the manufacturer has a kit they could provide to adapt your fixture. Our track was made by Bruck, in large part because their fixtures are easy to install and uninstall (don’t even need a screwdriver). But each track system is different... hope that helps!