Pendant Lights and Pot Rack

Here are a couple of pictures of the pot rack and pendant lights installed. Below I detial out the steps on how to easily align these to the island.

Observe that the dog is just as interested in the new rack as I am...

How to hang a pot rack

Getting the lights and pot rack lined up to the island is not hard, it just takes a little bit of time. Here is what you need:

• Plumb-bob (Wikipedia article on using this)
• String (Mason's line is the best)
• Ruler
• Small Square
• A few nails and hammer
• Painter's tape

Initial set up:

• I set the rack and lights on island, in the positions I wanted them to be on the ceiling.
• Take time with this step. Make sure you have everything where you want it, and that everythnig is centered.
• Have a someone else (my DW) look at it and verify its correct - saving lots of pain later on.

Marking the pain points on ceiling:

• The two pendant lights make the "long axis" of the layout.
• I put tape on the island and marked the center of the lights.
• I used a plumb-bob to transfer the marks to the ceiling.
• I checked the marks against the closest side wall, just to make sure things were OK. They were within 1/8" inch of each other, so there was no problem. I think anything 1/4" or less is not even worth adjusting for.

Laying out the ceiling:

• I drove a nail at the two points I marked on the ceiling, and stretched a string tightly between them. This is the key step - since the string on the ceiling is a main line for the pot rack.
• Once I figured out where I wanted the chains to go, I marked the positions on the ceiling along the line.
• Using a square, I marked the positions from the line where the pot-rack bolts actually go.
• The diagram gives the general idea:

• One the marks were in place, I checked everything against the side wall to verify.
• Note that I have put the pot rack chains going slightly outward in both directions. This helps stabilize it, and reduce the "swing set" effect. Once a few pans were put on it, it hardly moves at all.

Mounting the rack:

• None of the places I wanted to put bolts had trusses.
• Using toggle-bolts, etc. hoping that the ceiling sheetrock would be strong enough for the pot rack is nuts. Even if it did work today, it would come down at some point.
• I drove nails through the ceiling where the bolts when, and when up in the attic and put some blocking in place. Pulling out insualtion and putting this in is a pit of a pain, but don't skip it.
• Here is a fairly good article from Lowes on adding blocking for a rack: http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=howTo&p=Build/hngpotrck.html

Adjusting the height:

• I left the extra chain on for now. We are gonig to use the rack for a week to make sure it's at the right height, then cut the excess chain off.

More detail in my article library on eHow...

Island Pot Rack and Pendant Lights

I decided to change plans a bit and work on the pot rack and ceiling lighting instead of cabinets. We have a full Saturday and the weather is going to be cool, so I will be mounting the pot rack, pendant lights and can lights - lots of attic work. Its going to be relatively messy, so I want to get it all done in one shot. This is the last "big mess" thing we need to do.

Here is the assembled pot rack. Its made by Calphalon (link to orginal post). We bought the largest one they sell: 54" x 20".


When I laid out the rack with the pendant lights on the island, they were a bit too close to each other.

The nice thing about this pot rack is that its somewhat adjustable. I took the center pieces out to cut the length by 12 inches - now its 44" long. I could have also taken the rounded ends off to get 36 inches. Considering the rack cost $100, I can take the peices out and still pay signficantly less than the smaller version would be retail. I am going to use the 12 inch sections I removed for small hook bars on either side of the cooktop.

A tip on assembly: put in all the screws finger tight, then use a wrench to tighten them all down. They are much easier to align if you do it this way.

Now the spacing is much better. We want as big of a rack as possible, but not have pans bump into the lights.


I did a bit of research on how high the lights and rack should be. There is of course the common sense approach, but I like to get an idea of what the designers say to do. Unfortunately, as in many cases, there is not a clear set of guidelines that I could find online. It seems like 90% or are just add sites with some sort of fluff paragraph about lighting.

Here is what I found:

• Pendants should be 30" to 40" inches above the counter top
• You should be able to see through the island to a person you are talking to. We are a family that ranges from 5'2" to 5'10", so we are going with 30".
• Same for the pots hanging from the rack. A 20" long pan (includes handle) should be about 30 inches off the counter, but still reachable by the shortest person using the kitchen.
• The compromise we cam to is to have the bottom of the rack hooks 14 inches from the ceiling. We will set it up with a bit longer chain, and check it tomorrow.

The pot rack is going to need to carry a lot of weight, so I will be putting some blocking in the attic to support the eye bolts for hanging it. I will take pictures of how I do it and post them.

[Link to photo set]

More detail in my article library on eHow...