How to Center a Table With Recessed Lighting

Centering a table under recessed light provides task and mood lighting.

Recessed lighting over a table -- whether the table is in a loft, great room in an open floor plan, kitchen or dining room -- helps to define your space. A kitchen or dining room table often serves multiple purposes in the home, and recessed lighting gives the table both task lighting and mood lighting. Center a table with recessed lighting to take full advantage of the lights for a relaxed mood at meals -- and focused illumination for household accounts, homework, reading, craft projects or playing cards.

Things You'll Need

• Heavy-duty tape measure
• Grid paper (optional)
• Masking or painter's tape

Instructions

1. Turn on the recessed lights and any other lights in the room, such as a chandelier, pendant light or lamps. Check the lighting at night, to see if the illumination is adequate for task lighting, if needed.

2. 

   Mark the position of the lights on grid paper to center the table.

   Extend a tape measure from the floor to the center of a light. Check that the tape measure is straight. Mark the floor with masking tape or painter's tape directly below the light. Measure from the light to the nearest wall in a straight line and then mark the light's location on the grid, using a 1-inch-to-1-foot scale. Alternatively, if you have a copy of the house plans or room plan, check if the light positions are marked. This will help you center a table with the recessed lights.

3. Position the table under the recessed lights so it receives even illumination, if possible. For example, center a table under two rows of recessed lights on one side of the kitchen, using the grid plan as a guide.

4. Adjust the table's position to allow enough space for walkways and to pull out the chairs, if necessary. As a general rule, allow 36 inches for chairs to pull out from the table, and increase the amount of space if the household includes people who need more clearance, such as a person who uses a wheelchair or a walker. For example, center the table under one row of recessed lights, instead of between two rows of lights, to allow enough room between the table and the wall, if needed.

Tips & Warnings

• For a small room with evenly spaced lights, you can center the table without measuring each light. For example, if the recessed lights are all positioned the same distance from the walls and each other, set up the table and chairs in the middle of the room. If the room is 12 feet wide and the table is 4 feet wide, position the table so the edge is 4 feet from the wall so the center of the table is in the center of the room.

• Using a long-handled tool with a suction cup designed for changing bulbs can reduce the risk of a fall. Hardware vendors and home improvement stores carry this kind of tool.

• If the recessed lights aren't on a dimmer switch or if the amount of light from the recessed lights isn't adequate for reading because of the wattage of the light bulbs or the distance from the ceiling to the table, the illumination may not be suitable for reading or other close work, especially at night. Add a standing lamp or other light source, or use brighter light bulbs to reduce the risk of eyestrain.

References

• Ask the Builder: Recessed Lighting

Resources

• Apartment Therapy: Bridging the Divide: Old and New in the Dining Room
• Apartment Therapy: Recessed Lighting: How to Change the Bulb