One of the many concurrent projects we’ve been working on the last few weeks is trying to find a way to lower the dining room chandelier.  When we got the light a few months ago, it only came with 18″ down rods.  So when Rick installed it over our dining room table, our 9 feet ceilings made the light look completely disconnected from the table.

It is generally recommended that you hang a chandelier approximately 28-32 inches over a table with an 8 foot ceiling height. If your ceiling is higher than 8 feet, the chandelier can be mounted an additional 3 inches higher for each foot of ceiling. That meant for our 9 foot ceilings, we needed to hang our chandelier anywhere from 31-35 inches over the table.  In its original location, the chandelier was about 53 inches above the table, so we needed to lower it by about 18 inches.

We thought it would be a relatively easy task to find an 18″ extension rod to lower the light.  We were wrong.  During the numerous trips we made to various DIY stores in the past few months  (and I mean *numerous*), we weren’t able to locate anything in the lighting section that would enable us to extend our light.  If you were in a Home Depot or Lowes in the Raleigh, NC area recently, and saw a bewildered blond haired English woman muttering to herself saying “surely we’re not the only people in the world who have come across this problem” (peppered with a range of expletives), then that was me. I mean, come on people!  How hard is it to find an 18″ long, 5/16″ diameter chrome pipe in a big box store that sells millions of items?

The lighting section wasn’t offering any solutions, so it was time to think outside of the electrical box.  We came across a solution in the … plumbing section.  Rick found exactly what we needed – an 18″ chrome toilet connector pipe. In order to connect the pipe to the existing light rod, we got a couple of  3/8″ chrome compression nuts and a  3/8″ compression union (in brass unfortunately – nothing a bit of chrome spray paint couldn’t fix).

Using a hack saw, Rick cut the bulbous end off the toilet pipe, and then flared both ends (using his flarey tool thingy-me-jiggy – I’m so technical, don’t you agree?).  The flared ends made the compression union and nuts fit snugly.  So, one end of the pipe was connected to the down rods attached to the light plate (using the compression fitting that originally came with the light).  The other end of the extension pipe was connected to the rods attached to the light itself, using the new compression fittings.  Et voila! We now have a newly extended dining room light that hangs at the perfect height over the table.

Check out the before and after.  It’s amazing how 18 inches makes such a difference.  Size really does matter after all

One project down. 311, 563, 899 left to go.

Tags: chandelier, dining