Swag Lighting

The lighting in my dining area has been driving me crazy. It isn’t centered over our kitchen table. I have thought about moving the lighting but that would require some electrical knowledge and to fill a hole where the current light is coming out of, which is not something I really want to do.

I had an idea to try what is called “swag lighting”. I knew what I was looking for but not what it was called. The very helpful man at Lowe’s explained to me how it works and what to get. This $5 kit would fix everything!

I guess swag lighting was very popular in the 70’s and 80’s so you could move your lighting anywhere in the room, provided you had enough chain. Part of my problem is that our chain isn’t that long. I know the standard lighting distance from the table is about where it was originally but as the Lowe’s guy said, it is my house and no one can tell me I am wrong – plus we hit our head on the light how it is now so it can’t hurt to be higher!

You basically drill a hole in the ceiling, put this tool thing in there and tighten the screw and then hang the chain where you want it. We had to get one that could hold a substantial amount of weight since this wasn’t a plant and some of the hooks only held 10 lb. I went with the 60 lb capacity to be safe.

This is the end result. The light is higher than I expected but I like it and I feel much better that it is centered over the table now!

This is what the hook and chain look like up close. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to install and fix something that has been bothering me almost the entire time we have lived here!