Handcrafted Wooden Pendant Light

This pendant is made from timber rather than finished to look like it, and that single fact accounts for most of the difference between it and the moulded fixtures it will be compared against. Wood has grain running through the material instead of printed across a surface, so the shade has genuine depth and tone variation and no two pieces are quite identical. It also ages properly, darkening and mellowing over years in a way a veneered or moulded shade simply cannot. Because each one is handcrafted, the exact fall of the profile and the character of the grain vary slightly between units, which is either the reason you want it or the reason you do not, and it is better said in advance than discovered on arrival. Wood also behaves differently from glass and metal when lit. It does not sparkle or reflect; instead the shade absorbs and warms the light, and where the timber is thin enough the material itself glows slightly from within, giving a much softer edge to the pool of light beneath it than a hard-shaded fixture produces. In a room with a lot of hard surfaces already competing for attention, that warmth is the practical argument for a timber pendant over another glass one.

Three diameters are offered, at twenty-three, thirty-five and forty-five centimetres, in two profiles. Sizing should follow what sits beneath the pendant rather than the size of the room, which is the mistake most often made at this point. The common guidance for a dining table is a fixture roughly half to two-thirds the width of the table, so the smallest size suits a bedside, a hallway console or a pair hung above a narrow island, the middle size is the most generally useful over a small dining table or a kitchen counter, and the largest is the one to choose when a fixture needs to carry a full dining table or a living room on its own. A smaller pendant in that position does not read as understated, it reads as underscaled. The two profiles give the same material a different presence, one more compact and contained, the other more open, and the choice is worth making against the room's other shapes rather than in isolation. Where there is a long table or an island, two or three of the smaller size hung in a run almost always looks more considered than one large fixture stranded in the middle, and it distributes the light far more evenly along the surface.

The drop is adjustable, so set the height at installation rather than accepting whatever it arrives at, since correcting it later means taking the whole fixture down again. Over a dining table, roughly seventy-five to ninety centimetres of clearance above the tabletop keeps sightlines open while putting the light where you eat; over a kitchen island you can hang slightly lower; in a hallway the only constraint is head clearance for the tallest person who passes beneath. Installation is a standard hardwired ceiling connection, straightforward for anyone comfortable with household mains wiring and a short job for an electrician otherwise, and having an electrician set the drop properly while the fitting is up saves revisiting it. Timber wants a dry indoor position, so directly above a hob in the steam path or in an unheated porch are not the right places for it over the long term, while an ordinary kitchen or dining room poses no problem at all. Care is an occasional dust with a dry cloth. Avoid solvent cleaners and standing water on the surface, and keep the pendant out of prolonged direct sunlight, which will lighten the timber unevenly on the side that faces the window over a period of years.

• Material: Handcrafted solid timber - grain varies between pieces
• Sizes: 23 cm, 35 cm or 45 cm diameter
• Profiles: Two shade shapes (A and B)
• Light: Warm, softened glow - timber diffuses rather than reflects
• Drop: Adjustable at installation
• Suggested hang height: 75-90 cm above a tabletop
• Mounting: Hardwired ceiling fixture, dry indoor rooms

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