Your Guide to Kitchen Island Lighting

A kitchen renovation may be on your list of want-to-do projects for your home. But if you’ve decided to wait a few more years to take on such a big project, there are easy updates you can do right now to completely transform your kitchen. One of those updates being your kitchen island lighting. Updating your kitchen island lighting can give your kitchen a fresh look without having to rip out cabinets. I’m sharing your guide to kitchen island lighting with pendants.

If you don’t need to update your kitchen lighting right now, updating your dining room lighting is also an excellent way to give your home a fresh new look without extensive renovations. Check out my post on dining room light fixtures HERE.

Your Guide to Kitchen Island Lighting

Tips for Island Kitchen Pendant Placement

There’s actually a method to the madness when it comes to hanging pendants over your island. You want to make sure they’re centered with the island, the right height from the countertops and spaced accurately apart.

When we were designing our kitchen, I wanted the range of our stove to be in the middle of our two pendants when you were looking into the kitchen.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when hanging pendants above your island:

There should be 30″-36″ between the bottom of your pendants and your countertops. My husband is 6’1″, so we hung ours at 36″.
The distance between your pendants should be at least the same diameter for each pendant. For example, my pendants in our kitchen are 20″ in diameter and the space I have in between them is 22″.
There should be at least 6″-10″ to the edge of your countertop on both sides.
When you’re measuring your light fixture, you want to measure from the ceiling mount to the bottom of the pendant.

With those measurements in mind, you can then decide if your kitchen island will need two, three or more pendants. Here’s a reel I created to explain these measurements.

Deciding on the Style of Pendant

With most anything, there are many, many different styles of pendants to choose from. When you’re deciding on what style to choose for your kitchen pendants, you have to look at your overall aesthetic of your kitchen. Is it more farmhouse, modern, midcentury or somewhere in between? Because you’ll most likely have at least two pendants over your island, it’s best to stick with a minimalistic design, so you’re not overpowering the whole look of the kitchen.

When choosing a pendant, you also want the island pendants to look cohesive with the rest of the lighting fixtures used in the kitchen and dining area. If your living room is open to the kitchen, you also want the living room fixtures to flow with the kitchen.

We stuck with a more classic dome-shaped pendant for our kitchen, and love the way they look. Because our kitchen as a lot of light colors, we decided on brass for the pendants to warm up the space.

How Much Light Do You Need

Though you want to be mindful of your pendant’s style, you also want to consider how much light the pendant will give your kitchen. Do these pendants need to provide a good amount of light throughout the entire kitchen? Or do you just need these pendants to brighten up the island itself with more focused lighting?

Opal or Linen Shades

Opal shades are made of glass but have a white cast over the entire light to tone down the level of brightness it provides. So though it provides a consistent brightness for the whole kitchen, it won’t be as bright as if it wear clear glass.

Linen shades are great to use if you love a cozy feel to the space. Much like a lamp on your side table, this provides a similar lighting experience that the opal shade provides – all-over lighting, but not as bright as a clear shade.

Clear Shades

Clear shades give the most consistent and brightest level of lighting for your kitchen. If there isn’t much lighting anywhere else throughout the space or you prefer the island to be the main source of lighting, then I would suggest using a clear or hammered clear glass shade.

Metal Shades

A metal shade is a light that provides concentrated lighting on your island. Because metal is opaque, it doesn’t provide much lighting throughout the space. However, it’s a perfect option if you’re doing a lot of cooking or other activities like homework etc. on the island daily.