You walk into someone’s bedroom, and think to yourself “God this feels expensive”. Nine times out of ten, it’s not the bedding or the paint colour – it’s the lighting. This was a lesson I learnt after months painstakingly scouring Pinterest for bedroom designs for my tiny bedroom, agonising over every colour scheme and sheet set.
But as soon as guests wandered into the room, the conversation would inevitably turn to how “weird” the overhead bulb made everything look. If my bedroom wasn’t nine feet by ten feet, I never would have considered adding a chandelier. Not exactly palace proportions, the space came with the builder’s standard issue ceiling fixture; essentially a lightbulb topped with a pathetic-looking frosted glass bowl.
Every surface looked flat, drained of life. I’d scroll through photos of bedrooms on Instagram that seemed impossibly glamorous, then sob into my textile samples.
But then my friend Emma came over for lunch.
Emma lives for home design, and can identify what’s wrong with any room in under thirty seconds flat. “You need a chandelier,” she said, after solemnly eyeing my ceiling fixture from across the room. “A chandelier?” I laughed. Who hangs a chandelier in a room that’s barely larger than their walk-in closet? Emma fixed me with a steely look. “Trust me,” she said. “Size doesn’t matter.” She was right.
Small rooms can totally rock a chandelier. Now, let me take you through my decision-making process, because DIY lighting was a learning curve. There are chandeliers made out of everything, from £50-coloured plastic disasters to £2,000-plus antique crystals that will bankrupt you.
Trust me, I looked at them all. Your local lighting showroom will try to pawn off enormous fixtures that look great… if you live in a dollhouse. These places are a goldmine of decor confusion.
Mirrors make spaces look larger? Don’t hang wall art above beds? STORAGE IS KING?
But there, amongst the chaos, I found it. The One. A petite brass chandelier with glass droplets, about eighteen inches across.
Tags on the side proclaimed it “perfect for bedrooms”. Oh HELLO little buddy, let’s get you home. Shop brass chandelier here.
The first thing you should know about bedroom chandeliers? They come in different sizes. Let me say that again, because it was news to me too: BEDROOM CHANDELIERS COME IN DIFFERENT SIZES.
Forever entrenched in dining room lighting logic, I was baffled to learn that the age-old “ RULE OF CHANDELIER HEIGHT MATCHING ROOM WIDTH IN FEET “ does not apply to bedrooms. Thank God, too. Who wants guests over for dinner in their bedroom?
When you’re picking out a fixture for your room, choose something that compliments your space without being overpowering. I ended up going with one that spanned about two feet across — and it’s perfect. Any larger and it would’ve overwhelmed the tiny room.
Any smaller and it wouldn’t have caught your eye when you walked through the doorway. My second dilemma? HEIGHT.
I’ve got standard eight-foot ceilings, which meant my head was going to slap that chandelier every time I straightened my ridiculous bed sheet mountain. Apparently I should’ve calmed down. Turns out most small bedroom chandeliers hang about seven feet from the ground.
High enough to not bang your head when you fluff your pillows, but low enough to admire your handiwork when you lay down. Say what you will about how obsessive I am about this chandelier, but I triple checked that number. I measured it again AND AGAIN.
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Heaven forbid you grab the wrong size and end up with holes drilled through your ceiling that don’t line up. So let’s talk installation, because holy heap of wrenches is that tricky. I seriously considered calling an electrician.
Then I thought about how much that would cost, and decided to do it myself. MISTAKE. WHAT WAS I THINKING.
Three hours, sore wrists, and Standing on the Desk Chair with Phone Torch Between My Teeth later, I had called it quits. After terrifying my neighbour Dave with my electricity incompetence, he came over and finished the job. Cost me another bottle of wine and my ego, but hey.
Live and learn, right? It changed the ROOM. Like, literally changed it.
My bedroom suddenly had that ‘woke up and took an Instagram filter selfie’ kind of glow. Warm overhead light reflected off of the glass droplets, casting hundreds of tiny reflections on the walls. The brass finished caught the gold hardware on my dresser drawer pulls.
Suddenly every surface, even my cheap-ass IKEA bed frame, seemed expensive and intentional. My room felt put together in a way I didn’t know table lamps and overhead lighting could achieve. Chandeliers also change how you use your bedroom.
My roommate and I actually USE our bedroom now. I installed a dimmer switch (Dave — bottle of wine three), and now reading in bed feels lavish instead of just… necessary. And when guests come over they actually hang out in our bedroom.
Who knew? Speaking of style, I went with brass because I knew I would eventually change everything else in my room. Guys, I changed everything else in my room.
New bedding. Moved my dresser. Painted an accent wall.
But that chandelier? Still works with literally every style I’ve thrown at it. Hot tip: when you can’t decide between trendy and timeless, opt for timeless.
Future-you will appreciate it immensely when today’s Pinterest obsession reigns supreme everywhere you look. God, even maintaining the thing is rewarding. I worried about cleaning all those glass droplets, but wiping it down with a microfiber cloth once every few weeks does the trick.
Just make sure you turn the electricity off to the damn thing FIRST.
Trust me on this one. Another note about cost.
Again, these things range from super inexpensive to SO EXPENSIVE. Mine was about £180, but that included the dimmer switch AND buying Dave dinner for helping. My point is, there are affordable options out there that look great.
I’ll be swapping mine out for an authentic ant looking thing as soon as I win the lottery, but for now I’ll settle for my pretty-ass fake crystal chandelier. SoTLIGHTING CHANGE YOUR LIFE. Kidding.
But it really can transform a room. My bedroom went from blah to BAM in one easy step. And now I can invite friends over without feeling embarrassed about my bedroom.
Win-win.
