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Pendant lighting not only light up your house, but they also add colour and personality to your interior.  They're shapely, chic, sexy and funky.  If you've overlooked pendant lighting, you're missing out on an accessory that is rapidly coming back into style.

Pendant lights are scaled-down and more affordable versions of chandeliers.  They are single-hanging entities without the extra branches. The light may be stripped to a bare bulb suspended from a  cord, or housed in a decorative shade crafted from glass, resin, metal or fabric.  In actuality, pendant lights can be every bit as fancy as chandeliers, because they can be studded with Swarovski crystals or dangling gemstones.

Pendants can range in size from a tiny 2 inches, to a lantern that is 22 to 48 inches in diameter.  Interior designers and architects appreciate them because they're more interesting than the recessed lighting that create holes in ceilings. Pendants can be used to spice-up a room or to instigate colour schemes.  When hung in multiples (I.e. in straight lines or staggered at different heights for effect), they can also effectively set a mood.

Mini-pendants typically serve as task lights which define the work surface of a kitchen island or bar.  But they can be also used in foyers, bedrooms, and bathrooms.  Wherever space is an issue, mini-pendants can be hung from above, effectively freeing up space in the room for furniture and other things.  Coming soon, Home Improvement Club will introduce a retro pendant light, which can be used to add some character into an otherwise dull environment.

Pendant lights have a rich history which dates back to 2700 B.C.  The Greeks were especially fond of diminutive hanging lamps of clay, which burned animal fat. While the Greeks continued to employ clay, the Romans used bronze for oil lamps in the first century A.D.  Around the third century, glass added a new aesthetic:  a peek through to the flickering light source.

There are exquisite examples of decorative Byzantine lamps of glass framed in bronze and dating to the 11th century. Hanging kerosene and oil lanterns from the 19th and early 20th centuries still turn up today at flea markets here and in Europe.  With more ornate crystal chandeliers originating in France in the 17th century and England in the early 18th century, smaller pendants with opalescent or frosted glass or crystals were designed up to the early 20th century.  The popularity of mid-20th-century modernism and the re-edition of these pendant lamps have drawn a new set of admirers, as have the classic light sculptures of Isamu Noguchi and Mariano Fortuny.

In the 1980s, innovative contemporary lighting shown in Milan at the Salone del Mobile furniture exposition sparked excitement in design magazines.  Around the same timeframe, European pendants began to appear.  Viewed as accessories, pendants could be chosen for their form, colour, pattern and texture. Pendants definitely added style to a room. A white paper shade that looked like an upside-down layer cake created a crisp, strong focal point over a table.

Nowadays, glass offers a kinetic dimension. Light dances as it shines through glass, and colour comes alive. A formidable selection ranges from opaque bell shapes, etched or frosted solids, or lively patterns that are polka-dotted or striped.  Recent efforts have been made to replace glass with a durable polyethylene polymer.  The advantage of polyethylene pendant lighting is that it can have similar colour and reflective properties as glass, but it has unique opacity properties, and is more resilient to breakage.

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