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I have my floor plans, can you help me choose lighting for every room?
Dear Lyfairs,
I just finished building my home, and I'm ready to choose the lighting for the whole house. I need nine chandeliers in total, for the two-story foyer, the living room, the study, the hallway, the family room, the breakfast area, the master foyer, and the master bedroom. I have my detailed floor plans and home tour video. Can you help me choose the right lighting for every room?
—A US homeowner who builds her own house
Dear friend,
Congratulations on your new home. And thank you for trusting us with something this important. We hear this more and more often now, and it's one of our favorite kinds of project. Someone has just finished building, they're standing in these beautiful empty rooms, and rather than hunt through a thousand fixtures on their own, they'd like to hand it to someone who understands lighting, and trust them to get it right, room by room.
Yes. We would love to help you with this.
Here is how we work on a whole-home project like yours.
We work together with interior designers based in the United States, and for a project like yours, we're glad to offer a complimentary lighting consultation. It covers the things that make the difference between a fixture that's simply pretty, and one that belongs in its room: fixture scale and proportion, style, and selection for each space, along with guidance on installation height and the structural support and ceiling load each piece will need.
So that we can look at your home with a proper design eye, it helps us to have a few things. Send us whatever you have, and don't worry about making it perfect.
1. Your floor plans or drawings. The detailed ones you already have are exactly right.
2. Room dimensions. The length and width of each space. This is what tells us how large each chandelier should be, so it fills the room in beautiful proportion.
3. Ceiling heights. Especially for the two-story foyer, and any other tall or vaulted spaces. This tells us how large the piece can be, and how it should hang.
4. Photos or a short video of each space. These tell us more than numbers ever could, the light, the furniture, the feeling of each room.
5. Furniture or table dimensions, where they apply. If a chandelier will hang above a dining table, an island, or a breakfast table, the size of that piece helps us set the right scale and hanging height above it.
6. Any chandeliers you're already considering. If you've fallen for a particular piece, send it to us. We'll tell you honestly whether it's the right scale for the room, or suggest one that suits it better.
With all of that in hand, we would review everything through a professional design lens, and come back to you with our recommended chandelier size and scale for each room, chosen to work together as one harmonious whole, so your home feels considered from the entry to the master bedroom, not like nine separate decisions.
And one honest note, because it matters most on the larger pieces.
A two-story foyer chandelier, and any grand fixture, can be heavy. We will always give you the exact weight of each piece we recommend, and our designers can advise you on installation height and the support each one needs. But the final confirmation of your ceiling's load-bearing capacity and structural support should always be made on site by your own electrician or structural engineer, working from the real weights we provide. We would rather you be completely safe than take our word from afar.
You don't have to figure any of this out alone. That's exactly what we're here for. Send us your floor plans and a little about your home whenever you're ready, and we'll take good care of the rest.
Yours,
Marie
Founder, Lyfairs
