Can you make it eight meters?

Dear Lyfairs,

Is it possible to get a bigger size of this one — eight meters by one point two? How long would it take to make? And what is your very best price?

— an architect in the United States, building something large

Dear friend,

Yes. We can make it to your size. I want to say that first and plainly, because it's true — almost nothing in our workshop is fixed at a single dimension. Before a branch is bent, our designer draws the whole piece to scale and sends it back to you, so the thing you approve on paper is the thing that arrives in the room. We make to your drawing, not from our habit.

But you asked for my very best price, and I'm not going to give it to you yet. I hope you'll let me explain why, because the reason is the most honest thing I can tell you about who we are.

Years ago, a customer sent us a single blurry photo — just the outline of a dream she was carrying. We spent three weeks making it real. That taught me what this work is: not selling eight meters of light, but building the thing you already see in your mind. A price named before I understand the room isn't a price — it's a guess. And a piece this large is far too heavy to rest on one.

So before the number, let me ask you a few things. This is the part where we earn the work.

The first thing I want to ask is the one most people skip. You wrote eight meters by one point two. We make this piece both ways — as a branch that opens wide across a ceiling, and as a cascade that falls the full height of a stair or an atrium. So when you say eight meters, do you mean eight meters of width, or eight meters of drop? They are two different objects, living in two different rooms. I'd rather ask one careful question now than build the wrong dream beautifully.

Then, the room. Where will it live — a hotel lobby, a stair climbing through several floors, an atrium, a ballroom, the entrance of a house built tall as a small chapel? And the question I ask before all the others: how high is the ceiling? A piece at this scale needs sky above it and air beneath it. Give it too little height and even the loveliest fixture becomes something people lower their heads under. Tell me the length and width too, so the light and the room can stand in proportion, not in argument.

Then the quieter questions — the unglamorous ones that keep a beautiful thing safely in the air. Is this new construction, or a renovation? Do you know what the ceiling is made of, and whether it can carry the weight? This piece will not be light, and I would so much rather talk through the structure with you now than send something your crew cannot safely hang. Is the project residential or commercial? It decides the certification we build to — and for work going up in the United States, that detail matters more than anyone thinks about until the day of inspection. We think about it for you.

And when must it be in the air? Tell me the date the room has to be ready, and I'll tell you honestly whether we can meet it. Large custom work takes the time it takes to be made by hand, and then the time the ocean takes to carry it across to you. I'd rather give you a true date than a kind one.

You told me you're a builder, and I heard that. For trade partners — architects, design studios, showrooms, developers, the ones who come back with one room after another — we offer 20% off our chandelier collection. For a custom piece at this scale, or for anything outside that collection, we price it around your project rather than off a list. Tell me which you are, and I'll set you up properly.

So — no price today. Instead, a drawing of your light on its way back to you, and a handful of questions that tell you more about us than any quote could. We've been copied more times than I can count, and somewhere along the way I decided to stop minding and simply do the work. This — asking, drawing, getting it right by hand — is the work. The clients I'm proudest to build for are the ones who recognize that in the questions, and feel, even before the first sketch, that their room is in careful hands.

Tell me about the room. I'll tell you about the light.

With care, Marie, for Lyfairs

Letters to Lyfairs is where we answer real questions from real people, one at a time, in our own voice. If you're carrying a project — a custom size, a difficult ceiling, a room that needs something made for it — write to us at support@lyfairs.com. Some letters become quotes. Some become drawings. This one became both.