Find The Perfect Fandelier For Your Living Room
Looking to upgrade your living room lighting? Installing a fandelier is an excellent way to add beautiful, functional lighting. Fandeliers expertly combine air circulation from a ceiling fan with gorgeous chandelier-style lights.
But with so many options to choose from, how do you find the ideal fandelier? Read on for tips to match your lighting needs and decor.
What Are Fandeliers?
First, let's cover the fandelier basics. As the name implies, fandeliers merge ceiling fans and light fixtures. This two-in-one lighting option offers the airflow you expect from fans along with ambient, task, and accent lighting.
Fandeliers come in various configurations. Most feature central lights with surrounding fan blades that point down or angled blades integrated into the lighting design. There are also fandeliers with uplight components to cast light up and down.
Benefits of Living Room Fandeliers
Why choose a fandelier over a basic fixture or fan? Here are the main advantages fandeliers bring to living rooms:
- Circulate air and prevent stuffiness
- Provide bright, beautiful overhead illumination for tasks and ambiance
- Available in numerous stylish designs to match any decor
- Take up less space than a separate fan and light
- Offer convenient control from remotes or smart devices
Let's explore how to select the perfect fandelier to enhance your living room.
Main Fandelier Considerations For Living Rooms
Homeowners must weigh a number of factors while shopping for living room fandeliers including:
Room Size
Fandeliers come in varying sizes, usually ranging from 18 inches up to 72 inches wide. Measure your living room to gauge the appropriate fandelier diameter.
As a rule of thumb:
- Small living rooms under 200 sq ft do best with compact 18 to 36 inch wide fandeliers
- Medium living rooms around 300 sq ft suit 36 to 48 inch styles
- Large living rooms over 400 sq ft can accommodate 48 to 72 inch fandeliers
Pay attention to ceiling height too. Rooms with short ceilings often look best with smaller fandeliers . Grand living rooms with soaring ceilings can handle dramatically large fixtures.
Hanging Height
Proper fandelier hanging height ensures both efficient airflow and sufficient lighting spread to fill the room.
Hang your fandelier following these height recommendations:
- Coffee table areas: 5 ft off the floor
- Dining spaces: 2.5-3 ft over tabletop
- Entertainment zones: 6-7 ft high for ample illumination while seated
Lighting Needs
How will you primarily use your living room? Your activities dictate the right lighting specifications.
Task lighting aids detailed activities like reading or puzzles. For living room tasks, choose fandeliers with brightness ranging from 1200-1800 lumens.
Accent and ambient lighting sets the overall mood. To light the full room, look for wide-reaching fandeliers with at least 3 bulbs.
Fan Features
Do you want enhanced airflow from your fandelier ? Consider blades, controls, speeds, and efficiency ratings.
Blade quantity, pitch, width all impact airflow strength. Most fandeliers have 3-5 blades optimized for smaller rooms. Plus, many offer reversible modes to circulate air downwards during hotter months and upwards in winter.
Style & Decor
Above all, your perfect living room fandelier flawlessly matches your home's decor and design scheme. Whether your style skews modern, industrial, coastal, or traditional, there is a fandelier to align.
Match metal finishes like brushed nickel or bronze. Seek fixture shapes and materials that coordinate with room furniture and architecture. Incorporate preferred colors through globes, blades, or mounting.
The right fandelier will feel like a seamless addition, almost as if it was always meant to hang there.
Ideal Fandelier Placement In Living Rooms
Where should you install a living room fandelier for optimal function and visual appeal? These spots take top priority:
1. Above Main Seating Areas
Central living room couches, chairs, and benches are prime real estate for your new fandelier. Position above the main furniture grouping within comfortable yet sufficiently bright hanging range. You'll enjoy the airflow and ambiance during movie nights, visiting with guests, reading sessions, and time unwinding.
2. Centered In The Room
For open concept living rooms, center your fandelier within the space for expansive, even illumination and air circulation. Perfect symmetry looks fantastic while ensuring everyone enjoys the fandelier's benefits. This neutral positioning prevents awkward light and dark spots.
3. Entryways
Welcome guests with a dazzling fandelier in your living room entry space. Not only does this showcase your style, but it also sets the tone upon entering the room. Strategically placed near doorways, an entry fandelier also enables air to flow throughout the open concept space.
Design & Decor Tips For Living Room Fandeliers
How can you seamlessly blend a fandelier into your established living room design? Follow these expert decorating suggestions:
Cohesive Style
Choose a fandelier matching your interior design scheme. For example, pair black industrial fandeliers with exposed piping, antique rugs and reclaimed wood tables. Or complement coastal whites and natural textures with woven rattan fan blades.
Finish Matching
Match metals present elsewhere in the room--oil-rubbed bronze, brushed nickel, chrome and more. Tone-on-tone finishing creates cohesion and allows the fandelier to feel like an integrated component rather than an out-of-place addition.
Color Harmony
Incorporate accent colors through changeable fandelier elements like lamp shades or removable globes. You can easily modify hues if you later repaint or introduce new furniture and accessories. Ensure colors remain cohesive with wall colors and soft furnishings.
Room Proportion
Scale your fandelier appropriately to room size so it balances rather than overwhelms. Petite living rooms suit small-profile fandeliers around 30 inches wide. Vaulted great rooms command grand 62-inch statement pieces. Measure room dimensions as well as ceiling height when selecting the right fandelier size.
Activity Zones
Tailor lighting to typical living room activities. Reading nooks, for example, demand bright but glare-free downlighting from wider lamp spans. Ambient mood lighting sets the tone for conversation spaces. Fandeliers enable you to align suitable lumens and lighting spread to key areas.