How to Center An Off-Center Ceiling Light (Without Moving the Junction Box)
THE FARMHOUSE
Our new laundry space is the old porch at the back of our 1912 Farmhouse, and there’s plenty of the charm you’d expect. My favorite detail is the century-old beadboard ceilings. They’re nostalgic and lovely…but they made hanging a new light fixture an issue. Because we couldn’t bring ourselves to cut a new hole into the beadboard (or put a big patch over the old junction box). And we really wanted to move the light fixture because it was centered on the room instead of the new doorway.
So the question became: how do you hang a pendant light off-centered from a junction box? Well it turns out there’s an easy solution! And it doesn’t involve an electrician, wiring, or a big budget. Read on for how we solved this problem…
Before I get to our solution, let’s talk about this pretty light fixture….
Picking a pendant for our space
We opted for a simple globe pendant, hung on an antique-brass chain from Rejuvenation (I bought it during their recent 25%-off sale for $219). The metal finish matches the kitchen lighting exactly and the globe shape and opacity will match the kitchen pendants (I’ll share what we picked for those soon). And all this matching should help unify these adjacent spaces.
moving a ceiling fixture…the easy way!
The old junction box was located in the center of the laundry room, but we wanted the light fixture to hang in the center of the doorway, 36” from the ceiling. How did we decide on 36”? We held up a tape measure and played around with what looked good. And 36” proved to be the magic number - low enough to see the light from the other side of the doorway, but high enough that no one should accidentally hit it.
I customized the chain length on Rejuvenation’s site for an overall fixture length of 60” (which will make sense in a second). The long fixture paired with a simple brass hook was enough to get the light fixture just where we wanted it. Let me show you how…
We installed the hook in the ceiling at the location where we wanted the fixture. First we pre-drilled a small hole and then twisted in the hook, which basically has a screw attached to it. Thankfully our beadboard is made of solid wood, so we felt comfortable that it was strong enough to support the fixture. But for peace of mind or if you have a really heavy light fixture, you could always throw in an anchor or add backing in the ceiling to mount your hook into.
I LOVE the look of a light fixture hung on a hook. You too? It feels older and more charming to me, for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on. Plus it takes up more ceiling space, and there’s plenty of that in this 10’-tall space.
And now our light hangs exactly where we want it! Easy peasy, right?!
Would you ever hang a light fixture like this? Have you?
psst you can get caught up on all the posts about our laundry room below…
