Ceiling Light Ideas: How to Choose Ceiling Lights Fixture for Your Ceiling Height

Lighting is an important aspect of a home not just for doing essential tasks, but good lighting can beautifully transform a space. It helps to set the tone of a house and enhances the vibe of a room. Home lighting fixtures give attention to every corner of a room and create accents. 

Nowadays most of the homes have layered lighting. With the help of layered lighting, all the light disperses rather than only coming from a single source and creates a certain mood for that particular space. You can maintain the right balance for layering by ceiling lights. Go with the right mixture of functionality with beautiful aesthetics. You can choose ceiling lights either for a particular effect or combine them with coordinated or different wall light fixtures. 

It is difficult to choose a perfect lighting fixture as there are so many designs available in the market. To help you find the best one for your house we have shared some basic tips on how to choose the ceiling lighting fixtures for your house's ceiling height. Take a read through our ceiling light buying guide and find out how ceiling lights will make a statement all on their own to your house. 

Let’s get started!

Getting the ceiling light right in every room comes down to four key elements: Scale, clearance, spacing, and brightness.

1. Scale: measure the height and diameter of a lighting fixture 

Let’s go ahead with the typical standard parameters. Start with the room which is opened and measure its height, length, and width. 

Diameter: To find out the diameter of a lighting fixture which is perfect for your area:

• Take the measurements of the room’s length and width in feet. Like 12 feet by 14 feet

• Now add the length together. Like 12+14 = 26

• Convert that value from feet to inches. Like 26 feet > 26 inches

• This will be the optimal diameter needed for a ceiling lighting fixture. 

Height: To find out the lighting fixture height that is perfect for your area:

• Go ahead by measuring the room’s height in feet starting from floor to ceiling.

• Now multiply the value of height by 2.6” to 3” per foot.

• Convert the value to inches.

• This will be the optimal height for a lighting fixture in this room. 

2. Clearance: What should be the height of the light fixture 

It depends on the placement of your room and how the lighting fixture should hang. It is equally important just like the size of the fixture. The clearance required depends on where the light has to be installed. 

So in living spaces, bedrooms, or any open entrance where people will be walking below a lighting fixture:

• Always try to keep 7.5 feet of clearance space from the top to the lowest side of the fixture.

• If your ceiling height is 8 feet then ensure to have low profile flush mount chandelier lighting to fulfill the standard lighting requirements.

• In an entrance or hallway, try to install chandeliers or pendants at least 6.1” greater than the door.

• For bathrooms, keep 8.1 feet distance from the top to the lowest of the fixture. In case the bathroom height is smaller then use a smaller chandelier or hang it approximately 3 feet away from the top. 

3. Spacing: At what place can you hang a light fixture?

The space around is also an important aspect, especially in what means it will relate to your adjoining furniture like your kitchen area or dining area. 

Kitchen island lighting: Just assuming that the height of your kitchen is not more than 10 feet, ceiling lights are the perfect option of adding ambient lighting. Mini Pendants are usually used in the kitchen for ambient lighting. Just ensure to have equal space between each pendant. Note the following steps:

• Take measurements of the table length in inches.

• Note the total number of pendants you want to add and measure their diameter. 

• Now add the combined diameter.

• Subtract the above diameter from the island length which you have taken in the beginning.

• Give numbers to the pendants. This will help to account for space between all pendants.

• Now just divide your above-subtracted figure by the total amount of pendants.

A good thing to note: install mini or medium-sized pendants, just from the bottom of each fixture to the floor which should be 66”-72”.

Dining table lighting: 

• Note the table’s size and shape.

• Linear suspension or multi-light pendants will work best with long rectangular and oval-shaped tables.

• A single pendant or chandelier will work perfectly with square and round tables.

• When installing a fixture over a table just ensure that the width and length should be at least 1 foot smaller than the total length of the table. 

• 28” and 36” should be hanging formula from the bottom of the fixture to the tabletop.

• If you want a dramatic effect you can go for round canopy multi-light.

4. How bright should the ceiling lights be?

When it comes to the brightness of ceiling lights, the term Lumen is used. Now you must be thinking what exactly is the lumen in the light bulbs and light fixtures? It helps to measure how much amount of light the bulb is providing. More lumens are brighter and fewer lumens mean dimmer light. 

In case you want a subtle accent lighting fixture then you can switch to dimmer lumens.

Conclusion: 

Different ceiling lights can be used in different rooms like you can go for a classic setup with a chandelier in the living room followed by pendant lights in the kitchen and modern-day flush mount lighting in your bedrooms. All different types of options are available at American home furniture. There is a huge variety of styles available so find your perfect ceiling light and match your taste with us.

So have your list of rooms handy with all the ceiling height measurements. Use the above tips and you are good to go. Explore now!