--- title: "Choosing Pendant Lights for Living and Dining Rooms" description: "How far above the table, how wide compared with the table, how much light, and an open or closed shade. With a lookup table by table size and ceiling height." canonical: https://denhachi.thenexova.cloud/en/journal/choosing-pendant-lights-living-dining lang: en last-updated: 2026-10-04 --- [Choosing lamps](/en/journal/topic/choosing-lamps) · Start here # Pendants for the living and dining room: three numbers to know > How far above the table, how wide compared with the table, how much light, and an open or closed shade. With a lookup table by table size and ceiling height. Nguồn / Source: https://denhachi.thenexova.cloud/en/journal/choosing-pendant-lights-living-dining How far above the table, how wide compared with the table, how much light, and an open or closed shade. With a lookup table by table size and ceiling height. [Đặng Thu Hà](/en/workshop/makers/dang-thu-ha) · Founder, lighting design · Published 10 Mar 2026 · Updated 4 Oct 2026 · 10 min read ![A wide, rounded woven rattan pendant seen from below, its inside glowing gold against a black background](/_astro/lamp-pendant-rattan.KIx2EtEU_1vbPd2.jpg) A pendant over a dining table comes down to three numbers. The bottom of the shade sits 70 to 80 cm above the tabletop. The shade is roughly half as wide as the table, and a table of about 1.6 m or longer gets two or more lamps instead of one. And there is enough light for dinner, which you check in lumens (the amount of light a bulb gives out) on the bulb box, not in watts. In a living room there is a fourth rule: a pendant hangs low only where nobody walks underneath it. I’m Hà, and I draw the light mock-ups at the workshop. Most room photos people send us show the same mistake: the lamp hangs where the ceiling outlet is, not where the table is. Here is each number in turn, with a lookup table by table size and ceiling height. ## Number one: how far above the table Measure from the tabletop to the bottom edge of the shade, never from the floor. The guides we have read land close to each other: | Source | Tabletop to bottom of shade | | ------------------- | ---------------------------------- | | Lights.co.uk (UK) | 60 to 70 cm | | Lightnox (Germany) | 60 to 75 cm | | JYT Design (Taiwan) | usually 75 to 80 cm | | Bock Lighting (US) | 30 to 36 inches, about 76 to 91 cm | The reasoning is the same. Too low, and people facing each other talk around a lampshade. Too high, and everyone seated looks straight into the bulb. We usually hang the bottom of the shade 70 to 80 cm above the table, and 75 cm is our default for a table of four. At [Thềm Chiều café](/en/projects/them-chieu-cafe-nhieu-loc), under a 3.6 m ceiling, we set it at 80 cm. How to measure, and what changes for round and long tables, is in our note on [pendant height over a dining table](/en/journal/pendant-height-over-dining-table). ## Number two: how wide compared with the table Lights.co.uk suggests a shade about half to two thirds of the diameter of a round table. JYT Design uses half the table’s length as a safe proportion, and for a 2 m table suggests two lamps 40 to 50 cm across. Lightnox says one pendant covers a table up to about 160 cm; beyond that, use several. Applied to our lamps: - A round table about 90 cm across, or a 1.2 m rectangle for four: one [Hạ Chí](/en/collection/ha-chi) (Summer Solstice) pendant, Ø45 cm, VND 2,900,000\. Forty-five is exactly half of ninety. - A small table for two, or a reading chair: one [Lập Thu](/en/collection/lap-thu) (Start of Autumn), Ø32 cm, VND 1,900,000. - A table for six, 1.6 to 1.8 m long: the [Xuân Phân](/en/collection/xuan-phan) (Spring Equinox) set of four pendants at staggered heights, VND 9,800,000, or two Hạ Chí at Ø35 cm, 2 × VND 2,600,000 = VND 5,200,000. - A 2 m table: Xuân Phân again, or three small lamps in a row. A shade too small leaves both ends of the table in shadow. A shade too big takes over the room, worse under a low ceiling. When we are torn between two sizes and the ceiling is under 2.8 m, we pick the smaller one. How far apart should several pendants hang? Lightnox suggests 60 to 80 cm centre to centre. Our three-lamp [Tiểu Mãn](/en/collection/tieu-man) (Grain Buds) set hangs at 60 cm spacing, inside that range. ## Number three: how much light People ask about this one least and get it wrong most. Lightnox recommends 150 to 300 lux on a dining table, which it translates to roughly 800 to 1,200 lumens for a 140 × 80 cm table and 1,000 to 1,600 lumens for 160 × 90 cm. Lux is the light landing on a square metre of surface; lumens are what the bulb sends out. Every lamp we make ships with a standard E27 LED bulb (the common screw-in size sold in any electrical shop in Vietnam), 2700K, 6 W, plus a spare. Lumens vary a lot at the same wattage. One 6 W 2700K LED filament bulb from MPE is rated at 806 lm; the Philips CorePro 6 W is sold as equivalent to a 40 W incandescent. When you replace a bulb, read the lumen figure on the box rather than the watts. For a table of four we usually aim for around 400 lumens or more over the table at dinner, which is below the Lightnox range. The two numbers answer different questions: Lightnox lights a table you can also work at, we light a dinner table with the rest of the room dimmer. If your dining table doubles as a desk, use two lamps, or add dimmable bulbs (VND 90,000 each) and a wall rotary dimmer (VND 350,000 per switch) so you can turn it up when you need to. ## Lookup table: ceiling, table and cable length The table below assumes a 75 cm high table (measure yours) and the shade bottom 75 cm above it. That puts the bottom of the lamp 1.5 m above the floor whatever the ceiling height, and whatever is left above it goes to cable and lamp body. | Ceiling | Ceiling to bottom of lamp | Cable to order | Notes | | ------- | ------------------------- | ----------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 2.6 m | 1.1 m | 1.5 m (standard), shortened on site | Prefer a flat shade; see our note on [low ceilings](/en/journal/pendant-lights-low-ceiling) | | 2.7 m | 1.2 m | 1.5 m (standard) | Like the An Khánh apartment below | | 3.0 m | 1.5 m | 1.5 m (standard) | Room for a tall shade like the 48 cm Đông Chí | | 3.6 m | 2.1 m | 2 m, VND 60,000 extra per lamp | Like Thềm Chiều café | The cable you actually need is the distance from ceiling to lamp bottom minus the height of the lamp itself. The standard [Đông Chí](/en/collection/dong-chi) (Winter Solstice) bell is 48 cm tall, so under a 3 m ceiling it needs only about 1 m of cable. Standard cable is 1.5 m; each extra 0.5 m adds VND 60,000, up to 3 m. Khang sets the final height on site when he installs, so you don’t need to get this right to the centimetre. The Xuân Phân set reads off the same table: four lamps at four heights on cables from 1.2 to 1.8 m, with the lowest still 70 to 80 cm above the tabletop. ## Open or closed shade: same bulb, two kinds of light With the same 2700K, 6 W bulb, the shade decides where the light goes. | Lamp | Shade | Where the light falls | Suits | | --------- | ------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------- | | Hạ Chí | Open rattan weave | Sideways through the weave, patterning the ceiling and walls about a metre away | Living rooms, a table for four, rooms that want pattern | | Đông Chí | Dense rattan with one open band | A band of light at eye level, no glare lying down | Bedside, hallway | | Lập Thu | Closely woven seagrass | One round pool below, soft around it | Reading corner, small bar | | Xuân Phân | Linen and square-weave rattan | Four overlapping pools along the table | Table for six, café entrance | An open shade lights the room; a closed one puts the light on the table and leaves the walls dark. A living room that runs into a dining area usually wants both: open for the shared space, closed where you need to see. For more on rattan, seagrass and keeping shades in good shape in this climate, read our [rattan pendant guide](/en/journal/rattan-pendant-lights-guide). ## The living room: where a pendant can hang Over a dining table a low lamp is in nobody’s way. In a living room people walk around. Bock Lighting gives a minimum of 7 feet (about 2.13 m) above walkways; we keep at least 2.1 m from floor to lamp bottom anywhere someone passes underneath. So in living rooms we hang pendants in three places: over a coffee table that sits out of the walking line, in the corner beside a reading chair (a Lập Thu with its bottom at shoulder height for someone seated), or high in the middle of the room with an open shade like Hạ Chí, so the rattan pattern lands on the ceiling. ## One colour temperature for every lamp All our lamps use 2700K bulbs: a warm, yellowish white close to an old incandescent bulb. LEDVANCE describes 2700K as suited to living rooms, bedrooms, restaurants and hospitality, and 3000K as a balanced warm white with fewer yellow and orange tones, for places where people need to see clearly, such as hotel lobbies, corridors and offices. Lightnox suggests 2700 to 3000K over a dining table. We use one colour for everything so lamps in the same home never clash. Choosing between 2700K and 3000K room by room, and what to look for on the box when you buy a replacement, is in our note on [2700K vs 3000K](/en/journal/2700k-vs-3000k-bedroom). ## Example: Khoa and Uyên’s apartment in An Khánh A 68 m² apartment in An Khánh ward (old Thảo Điền, in what used to be Thủ Đức City), with the living room and dining table in one space under a 2.7 m ceiling. The ceiling outlet was 60 cm off the centre of the dining table, and the old ceiling light in the middle of the room never reached the table. We hung a Xuân Phân set over the table on an offset swag hook (VND 150,000): the cable runs from the outlet to a hook fixed right above the table’s centre, so the lamps sit in the middle without anyone cutting into the ceiling to move wiring. Uyên reads in a corner of the bedroom, which is air-conditioned and dry, so she has a Lập Thu with a shade of giấy dó (dó paper, made from the bark of the dó tree), VND 400,000 extra. | Item | Price before VAT | | --------------------------------------------- | ------------------ | | Xuân Phân, set of four | VND 9,800,000 | | Offset swag hook | VND 150,000 | | Lập Thu | VND 1,900,000 | | Dó paper shade for Lập Thu | VND 400,000 | | Delivery and installation in Ho Chi Minh City | Free | | **Total** | **VND 12,250,000** | With 8% VAT that comes to VND 13,230,000\. As the owners put it: “The old ceiling light only goes on when we clean the flat now.” The drawing and the time each step took are on the [An Khánh apartment project page](/en/projects/an-khanh-apartment-thu-duc). ## Where people go wrong - **Hanging from the outlet, not over the table.** Outlets tend to sit in the middle of the room; tables get pushed against a wall. A lamp under the outlet lights the floor. A VND 150,000 swag hook costs far less than opening the ceiling. - **Measuring from the floor.** “1.6 m off the floor” sounds fine until your table turns out to be 72 or 78 cm high. Always measure from the tabletop. - **A big shade under a low ceiling.** A 2.6 m ceiling leaves 1.1 m between ceiling and lamp bottom. A Ø55 cm shade there makes the whole room feel heavy. - **One lamp over a long table.** A single pendant in the middle of a 2 m table leaves the people at each end eating in shadow. - **Mixing colour temperatures.** A 2700K pendant next to 6500K downlights makes both look wrong. Keep the downlights on a separate switch, or swap them for warm bulbs. - **Buying by watts.** Two 6 W bulbs can differ by nearly double in lumens. Read the lumen figure. ## How we do it at the workshop Before we make anything, we draw the lamp into a photo of your own room, at the right height, with the pool of light on the table and the pattern on the wall. The first version is free and arrives within 48 hours of your photos; requests that come in on a Monday count from Tuesday 9:00. Send two photos, one by day and one in the evening, with the ceiling height and the size of your table. I choose the shade size and cable length and draw the mock-up; you ask for changes until you are happy. The price is fixed on the drawing, the deposit is 50% when you approve it, and the lamp is ready three weeks later. In Ho Chi Minh City, Khang delivers, installs and sets the height on site, free once per order. When we install, I measure the light on the tabletop with a handheld lux meter and compare it with the mock-up. If the table sits under the outlet and the ceiling is 2.7 m or higher, the tables above are enough to choose by yourself. If the outlet is off-centre, the ceiling is low, or the living and dining areas run together and you are not sure where the lamp belongs, [sending a room photo](/en/light-mock-up) is faster than working it out. To see the lamps lit first, [book a visit](/en/visit-the-workshop) to the workshop in Gia Định ward (old Bình Thạnh). ## Sources and last check - Lights.co.uk, [Pendant light guide](https://www.lights.co.uk/inspiration/pendant-lighting-guide). - Lightnox, [Illuminate your dining table like a pro](https://www.lightnox.de/en/blogs/news/esstisch-beleuchten-wie-ein-profi-hohe-abstand-lumen-kelvin-mit-beispielen), 19 August 2025. - Bock Lighting, [Mounting Height Calculator](https://www.bocklighting.com/tools/mounting-height-calculator). - JYT Design, [dining table pendant height and size](https://jytdesign.com.tw/en/blogs/blog/diningtable-pendant) (Chinese). - LEDVANCE, [2700K vs. 3000K](https://www.ledvance.com/en-us/professional-lighting/insights/blog/lighting-basics/2700k-vs-3000k). - Bulb data: [MPE 6 W 2700K](https://luminaires.dialux.com/en/article/CFFSVjp4Qp6SFNIGdN1Dug), [Philips CorePro 6-40W 827](https://icecat.co.uk/p/vendorName/mpn/desc-32325691.html). Around 400 lumens for a table of four and 2.1 m over walkways are our workshop’s practice, not technical standards. Prices are from our 2026 price list, before 8% VAT. Last checked 4 October 2026. ## See it in your room first Send a room photo, get a light mock-up in 48 hours. [Send a room photo](/en/light-mock-up) ## Sources checked 1. [Pendant light guide: practical tips (Lights.co.uk)](https://www.lights.co.uk/inspiration/pendant-lighting-guide) 2. [Illuminate your dining table like a pro: height, distance, lumens and Kelvin (Lightnox, 19 August 2025)](https://www.lightnox.de/en/blogs/news/esstisch-beleuchten-wie-ein-profi-hohe-abstand-lumen-kelvin-mit-beispielen) 3. [Mounting Height Calculator (Bock Lighting)](https://www.bocklighting.com/tools/mounting-height-calculator) 4. [Dining table pendant height and size (JYT Design, Chinese)](https://jytdesign.com.tw/en/blogs/blog/diningtable-pendant) 5. [2700K vs. 3000K: What's the Difference? (LEDVANCE)](https://www.ledvance.com/en-us/professional-lighting/insights/blog/lighting-basics/2700k-vs-3000k) 6. [LED Filament 6 W 2700K, 806 lm data sheet (MPE, via DIALux)](https://luminaires.dialux.com/en/article/CFFSVjp4Qp6SFNIGdN1Dug) 7. [Philips CorePro LED 6-40W 827 E27 (Icecat)](https://icecat.co.uk/p/vendorName/mpn/desc-32325691.html) ## Lamps in this article [![A round, slightly flattened open-weave bamboo pendant with a diamond pattern, low sun glowing warm through the strips beneath a reed ceiling](/_astro/lamp-ha-chi.BOagvipy_25FkIz.jpg)Hạ Chí2,900,000 VNDRattan pendant · Living room, dining table for four](/en/collection/ha-chi)[![A closed-weave domed pendant glowing warm amber, its light pouring down through an open metal frame below, a second lit shade blurred behind](/_astro/lamp-lap-thu.BFxKdxO-_UMlJI.jpg)Lập Thu1,900,000 VNDSeagrass pendant · Reading corner, small bar](/en/collection/lap-thu)[![A tall bell-shaped pendant in dense woven rattan, its inside glowing warm yellow under a dark ceiling with steel beams](/_astro/lamp-dong-chi.nPpUbf6k_1ilc0j.jpg)Đông Chí2,400,000 VNDRattan bell pendant · Corridor, bedside](/en/collection/dong-chi) ## Read next - [Choosing lampsHow high above the table, and how many pendants for a long oneAbout 70 to 80 cm from tabletop to the bottom of the shade. One or two pendants over a 1.6 m table, spacing, and what to do when the ceiling outlet is off-centre.](/en/journal/pendant-height-over-dining-table) - [Choosing lampsA 2.6 m ceiling can take a pendant, if it hangs in the right placeOver a table, yes; over a walkway, no. Working out cable length for 2.6 and 2.7 m ceilings, and choosing a flat shade or a tall one.](/en/journal/pendant-lights-low-ceiling) - [Choosing lamps2700K or 3000K: choosing warm light for a bedroom2700K is the yellowish white of an old incandescent bulb, 3000K a warm white with less yellow. Which room suits which, what the box says, and why we use 2700K.](/en/journal/2700k-vs-3000k-bedroom)