When it comes to choosing lighting for the various rooms of your home, many people can forget that these fixtures do more than just provide adequate illumination for the space - in many cases, they form attractive features of the room and, as such, need to be aesthetically pleasing themselves. If you are in the process of choosing a chandelier for use in your dining room, it is important that you take the right steps in ensuring that you make the right choice.
One of the most important aspects of choosing a chandelier for a dining room is its proportion. You need to ensure that the fixture does not dominate the table beneath it nor that it fades into the background and becomes insignificant. The general rule of thumb is that the span of the chandelier should be 12 inches shorter than the table's width for it to not look out of place. Your starting point, then, should be in measuring the width and length of the dining table (or the diameter for a round one).
Another important aspect of choosing a chandelier for a dining room is where the fixture hangs. It should be placed over the centre of the dining table, ensuring that there is a 30 to a 33 inch gap between the surface and the bottom of the fixture to ensure adequate head space. If your table is not placed in the middle of the room, you may find it easier to place a hook in the ceiling above the centre of the table and run the chandelier's chain and wiring along the ceiling to it.
The next aspect that it is important to take into consideration is the globes that you choose for your chandelier. To ensure that your dining room is not illuminated like a Christmas tree, you should decrease the wattage of the globes according to the number of globes that you require. For example, if your chandelier has three or four sockets, you should be using globes that are around 40 watts.
And, finally, how easy your chandelier is to clean should be the final aspect taken into account when choosing one for your dining room. Extravagant crystal fixtures can be quite problematic when it comes to cleaning so, unless you have a spare day every 6 months or so, this is not going to be a good choice for you. For those who are time poor, a chandelier that only needs a quick dust or wipe down with a damp cloth every now and then is going to be perfect.