A chandelier size is two numbers, not one: a diameter and a height or drop. Factories quote both in centimetres, while American rooms are drawn in inches. Because one inch is exactly 25.4 mm, 100 cm is 39.4 in. This guide converts the sizes people actually type into a search bar, then measures what the catalogue really publishes.
Converting chandelier diameters from centimetres to inches
A chandelier is bought by diameter, and diameters are quoted in centimetres in almost every manufacturing catalogue, including the PALERILL one. To read those figures in inches, divide by 2.54. The conversions that come up in chandelier work are stable: 50 cm is 19.7 in, 60 cm is 23.6 in, 80 cm is 31.5 in, 100 cm is 39.4 in, 120 cm is 47.2 in, 150 cm is 59.1 in and 200 cm is 78.7 in. The reverse direction matters just as much when a room is specified in inches: 30 in is 76.2 cm, 36 in is 91.4 cm, 40 in is 101.6 cm, 48 in is 121.9 cm and 60 in is 152.4 cm. None of this involves rounding, because the international inch was defined as exactly 25.4 mm in 1959 and has not moved since.
| Shoppers ask for | That is | What the size usually suits, as a convention |
|---|---|---|
| 20 in | 50.8 cm | A dining room over a four-seat table |
| 30 in | 76.2 cm | A bedroom, or a compact dining room |
| 36 in | 91.4 cm | A standard dining room or open kitchen |
| 40 in | 101.6 cm | A large dining room |
| 48 in | 121.9 cm | A two-storey foyer, subject to headroom |
| 60 in | 152.4 cm | A great room, lobby or atrium |
The last column is a convention, not a standard. No lighting standard assigns a chandelier diameter to a room type, and the two rules further down this page are also conventions.
What the catalogue actually publishes, in inches
To answer with evidence rather than opinion, the PALERILL catalogue was read directly through the Shopify admin API on 2026-10-09. The catalogue holds 1,046 products and 7,355 variant options. Of those options, 825 state a diameter together with an explicit unit, which is 11.2 per cent of all options and covers 165 distinct products. Eight entries state a range outside a physically plausible 15 cm to 300 cm window and were discarded, leaving 817 options as the sample below. Every figure in the table is a list price read from the option record itself rather than a transaction price, and each band is measured in inches after converting the stated diameter at 2.54 cm to the inch. The sample therefore describes what the option names advertise, which is narrower than everything the workshop can build.
| Stated diameter | Options | Median price | Lowest | Highest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 30 in | 422 | $827 | $197 | $4,117 |
| 30 to 39 in | 304 | $1,657 | $469 | $10,171 |
| 40 to 47 in | 41 | $3,283 | $843 | $13,595 |
| 48 to 59 in | 24 | $4,633 | $901 | $8,883 |
| 60 to 78 in | 26 | $6,699 | $785 | $12,883 |
| 79 in and above | 0 | - | - | - |
Two things stand out. The distribution is bottom-heavy, with 726 of the 817 options below 40 in. And the median price roughly tracks the band, climbing from $827 under 30 in to $6,699 in the 60 to 78 in band.
The catalogue stops at 78.7 inches
The largest diameter stated anywhere in the option names is 200 cm, which is 78.7 in, and the smallest is 15 cm, or 5.9 in. That ceiling is worth knowing before a brief is drawn around a 96 in fixture. Counted by product rather than by option, 36 of the 1,046 products publish at least one option of 40 in or more, and 15 publish one of 60 in or more. No product publishes an option at 79 in or above. The practical reading is that a room needing a diameter beyond roughly 79 in has to be handled as a bespoke commission rather than picked from the standard option list. The most expensive single option in the sample is $13,595, and the least expensive is $197, so the range inside one catalogue spans a factor of 69.
Sizing a chandelier in inches for a US room
American interior designers commonly size a chandelier with a rule that adds the room width and length in feet and reads the total as a diameter in inches, so a 12 ft by 14 ft room points at about 26 in and a 20 ft by 24 ft room points at about 44 in. This is a convention, not a standard, and no code enforces it. A second convention covers the drop: hang the fixture so the lowest point clears walking headroom, and lift it further as ceiling height rises. Both rules assume the room is a plain rectangle with a flat ceiling and the fixture is the only one in the space. When any of those assumptions fails, the arithmetic is a starting point rather than an answer, which is what the next section deals with.
| Room, width by length | Convention diameter |
|---|---|
| 12 ft by 14 ft | 26 in |
| 14 ft by 18 ft | 32 in |
| 16 ft by 20 ft | 36 in |
| 20 ft by 24 ft | 44 in |
When a single diameter number is the wrong way to choose
A single diameter figure is not the right choice when the ceiling is not flat, when the fixture is seen from below at an angle, or when the constraint is structural rather than visual. A vaulted or sloped ceiling has no single width to measure, so the room-add convention gives a number that means nothing. A stairwell or a two-storey foyer is a vertical void, and there a long, narrow or cascading fixture often reads better than a wide disc of the same 40 in diameter. A long dining table wants a linear fixture rather than a round one, so the table width, not the room, sets the size. Ceiling load is the fourth case: once a fixture passes the weight a joist will take without a spreader, the diameter is no longer the limiting decision. In all four cases the diameter is still needed for the drawing, but it should not be the first number agreed.
Reading a spec sheet without swapping D and H
Manufacturing spec sheets print two or three dimensions in a fixed order, and swapping them is the most common way a buyer orders the wrong fixture. Almost every sheet leads with a diameter, some add a body height, and only a few print a total drop that includes the chain or the rod. The three figures answer three different questions: the diameter decides whether the fixture suits the room, the body height decides whether it clears headroom, and the drop decides where the lowest point sits above the floor. Two traps cause almost all of the mistakes. The first is a sheet that prints millimetres while the buyer reads centimetres, so D 1500 becomes 15 m instead of 150 cm. The second is a sheet that lists a body height and calls it simply the height, so a 150 cm body is mistaken for a 150 cm drop. Read them in this order:
- Find the D or diameter figure: this is the widest horizontal measurement of the body, excluding arms and any glass that overhangs.
- Find the H or height figure: this is the body height, not the total drop.
- Find the total drop if it is listed, because a tall body and a long chain are different problems and a low ceiling cares about the sum.
- Check the unit suffix on each figure, since some sheets print millimetres and some print centimetres, and a sheet reading D 1500 is 150 cm, not 15 m.
- Confirm the weight separately, because it is the figure that decides the fixing.
For a worked example of what ascending diameters cost, see what each size step adds. For rooms with more than one storey of height see chandelier size for great rooms and tall ceilings, and for entrances see the foyer chandelier size guide. Weight and ceiling capacity are covered in what a large chandelier weighs.
Sources and numbers
- Products, variant options and every price in this article come from the PALERILL Shopify catalogue, read directly through the admin GraphQL API on 2026-10-09. Nature: first-party direct read, not an estimate.
- 1,046 products and 7,355 variant options: counted over every active product in that read.
- 825 diameter-readable option names and 11.2 per cent: option names containing the word diameter followed by a number and an explicit cm or m unit, counted over all 7,355 options.
- 165 products: distinct products holding at least one such option name.
- 817 remaining options and the eight discarded entries: the 15 cm to 300 cm plausibility window applied to the 825 above.
- Every inch figure and every band in the second table: those 817 stated diameters converted at 1 in = 25.4 mm, then grouped into the six bands shown.
- The lowest and highest prices, $197 and $13,595: minimum and maximum of the 817 option prices.
- 36 products at 40 in or more and 15 products at 60 in or more: distinct products counted after conversion, not options.
- The 200 cm maximum and 15 cm minimum: extremes of the 817 stated diameters.
- The room convention, adding width and length in feet to read a diameter in inches: an industry convention with no standards body behind it. It is not a standard and is labelled as a convention everywhere it appears here.
- 1 in = 25.4 mm: definition of the international inch, 1959.
- Confidence: everything except items 10 and 11 is measured from our own catalogue. Items 10 and 11 are convention and definition respectively, and both are labelled as such.
Disclaimer
This article reports what option names in one catalogue state, which is a narrower claim than what the workshop can build. It does not claim that any size is best for any room, and the room conventions are not standards. Prices are list prices, not transaction prices. Coverage of 165 of 1,046 products means the size distribution should be read as a description of the published option list, not of all production capacity.