Chandelier/ceiling medallion placement
We’re continuing to do a “respectful modern restoration” of a brownstone parlor floor that had all of its original detail stripped out in the 1930s/40s… and we’re trying to figure out the best location for the chandelier and plaster medallion in the living and dining rooms.
Here’s the dilemma: If we put each light square in the center of the ceiling, centering them in between the exterior windows and the mantels… the lights themselves won’t be aligned with each other. (They’ll both be visible through the rectangular opening between the two rooms.) But if we align the lights with each other, the dining room light won’t in the center of the dining room windows (since the front and rear exterior windows aren’t aligned)… and I’m worried that will look very odd.
My fiancée actually thinks the light should be even less centered so it will be over the dining room table– but we don’t even HAVE a dining room table or know exactly where that’s going to be, and I think it will be very odd and unfortunate-looking to have a permanent light fixture substantially off-center in a room, especially if it’s got a medallion on the ceiling.
What do all of you think? This would be a much simpler issue if any of the original detail remained, since we’d just go, “Well, there’s the medallion… I guess that’s where the light is going to go!”
Guest User | 4 years and 8 months ago
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Guest User | 4 years and 7 months ago
Cate, sorry, I missed this earlier– but thanks for the very detailed response. We did decide to center the lights between the windows and between the mantels, which is roughly in the center of the ceiling. I don’t think it’ll be too noticeable that they aren’t perfectly aligned with each other, but it makes the most sense (although we may not be able to replace/restore the marble fireplace mantel over the dining room chimney bumpout, mostly due to space considerations, so it’s slightly less of an issue there).
cate | 4 years and 8 months ago
An electrician has a standard approach which is to center the light in the room, ignoring the mantels. It’s centered between the four walls. I just took a look at the alignment of our medallions, all original to our 1890s house. The medallion/light in the front parlor is in the middle of the room and it also aligns with the front windows and with the center of the chimney. This is not true of any of the other original ceiling lights in the house. They are all centered on the four walls regardless of any windows or fireplaces. The three lights in the three rooms on the parlor floor don’t line up exactly. But it’s hard to see there’s an issue because there’s a fretwork screen between the two front parlors blocking a direct view of the light in the second room. In the rear room, which was built as a bedroom but looks like a parlor, the light is not lined up with either the windows in that room or the chimney, although it is centered in the room. In the front room on the garden floor, the original dining room, the light is centered between the windows (and the four walls) but does not align exactly with the center of the chimney (surprisingly).
Guest User | 4 years and 8 months ago
And just to clarify, the dining room is actually open to the kitchen off to one side, so the dining room table wouldn’t be the major focal point of the room (there’d also be an island, a restored/replaced marble mantel, and two VERY tall windows).