Ideally your dining light fixture is centered over your dining table. Unfortunately, that’s not always the way the fixture is installed. 🙁 If you live in a home where the junction box for your chandelier is off-center from your dining table, don’t despair! If hiring an electrician, drywaller, and painter is our of your budget (or your landlord won’t allow it), it’s okay to choose a light fixture with a cord or chain and swag it to meet your needs!

Some folks worry that it’ll look cheap, messy, or half-done, but I find that once the room is complete there is enough to enjoy in the room that an extra bit of cord or chain is the last place your eye will look.

The trick to swagging your chandelier is choosing a light fixture that hangs from a cord or chain, *not* from a fixed stem. It’s also essential to make sure you securely anchor the hook or other swag system into your ceiling to carry the weight of the fixture. As long as you pay attention to those two details, swagging your chandelier offers you a faster, less-expensive solution for centering your fixture that also provides flexibility in case you decide to change up the room again.

What’s the key to a great installation? The key to a great installation will actually have less to do with the hook itself and much more to do with how you secure the hook. This hook, for example, is rated for 30 pounds. But the hook weight rating won’t do any good if it’s not securely installed to the ceiling. 😬

Ideally, you’ll be able to screw the hook directly into a ceiling joist (the wood that’s up above your drywall ceiling, to which they attached the drywall).

Check out this awesome photo of a swag chandelier installed by a client who was inspired by this very blog post! Fun!

If the joist isn’t in the right location for where you want to hang your light (which it seems like it never is), we recommend using a toggle bolt like this one (they come in many sizes – this one happens to have an 85-pound load rating). You’ll just need to make sure that the size of the bolt fits the size of the hole in your hook. The bolt head will be silver but if your hook is black you can re-color the screw with a bit of black paint or a sharpie to camouflage it after installation! Alternatively, you can choose a hook that comes with the right-sized toggle bolt like this one which is rated for fifty pounds.

Now, this is all assuming that you have drywall ceilings. As this company states for their swag hooks: “The ceiling toggle hooks are meant for drywall mounting only. Screw hooks are meant for direct wood or ceiling-joist only. If the ceiling is made of plaster, brick, or concrete, please consult your local hardware store for assistance.” So obviously you will want to adjust this guidance for your actual site conditions!

We hope this gave you a better idea of what it takes to swag your chandelier! As always, if you need any more assistance, please reach out! We would love to help.

MAY YOUR HOME (And your chandeliers) ALWAYS BE HAPPY!