McGee & Co Lighting Guide — The Best Fixtures and How to Choose the Right One
Lighting is the most impactful design decision in any room and the most consistently underinvested category in home design. People spend $3,000 on a sofa and $80 on the light fixture above it. The light fixture is on every time you’re in the room. The sofa gets used for a few hours a day. The priorities are backwards.
McGee & Co’s lighting is some of the strongest work in their catalog — the quality holds up better across the price range than in their furniture, and the pieces do genuine design work in the rooms they’re placed in. Here’s how to navigate the lighting catalog and which specific pieces are worth buying.
The Thea Chandelier — Why It's the Piece Most People Should Buy First
The Thea Chandelier comes up in almost every McGee & Co conversation because it genuinely earns the attention. Woven rattan shade, brass hardware, the warm diffused light that rattan creates when bulbs are inside it — the look is immediately associated with the Studio McGee aesthetic and it’s one that’s held up through several years of popularity without looking dated.
The quality on the Thea holds up better than the product photography suggests. The rattan is thick and well-woven — not the thin, fragile rattan that shows up in discount versions of this look, but material that has structure and weight and doesn’t shift or crack at stress points. The brass hardware — canopy, chain, socket hardware — is appropriately heavy and maintains its finish.
In person, the Thea looks more impressive than in product photos. This is the opposite of most things you buy online and it’s worth saying explicitly. The warm glow it creates when lit is something that photos don’t fully capture — the way light filters through the rattan weave creates an ambiance that changes the character of the room it’s in.
Size selection is the most important decision when buying the Thea. The small works in breakfast nooks, powder rooms, and small dining spaces up to about 8 by 8 feet. The medium — the most versatile option — handles dining rooms up to 10 by 12 feet and works as a statement piece in larger living spaces. The large needs ceiling height and room scale to work — a room with 9-foot or higher ceilings and a dining table that seats 8 or more.
The ceiling height rule for chandeliers: the bottom of the fixture should hang at least 7 feet from the floor in a room where people walk under it. Over a dining table, the bottom of the fixture should be 30 to 36 inches above the table surface. Measuring before buying is not optional — a chandelier hung at the wrong height looks wrong regardless of how good the fixture is.
The Other Lighting Worth Knowing About
Beyond the Thea, McGee & Co’s pendant lights are consistently strong in quality. The pendants over kitchen islands and in entry halls — simple forms in rattan, aged brass, or ceramic — hold up well and represent good value relative to comparable pieces from other brands.
The table lamps vary more in quality than the pendants and chandeliers. The lamp bases in ceramic and textured plaster are generally good — substantial weight, quality finishes. The ones in thinner materials or with less refined construction are where the catalog weakens. Reading reviews on specific lamp bases before buying is more important in the lamp category than in the chandelier category.
The shades across all lamp categories are consistently well-chosen at McGee & Co — linen and fabric shades that diffuse light warmly rather than the white paper shades that dominate the lower end of the market. This is a place where the brand’s aesthetic curation does real work: the shade selection is correct for the warm, layered lighting that the look requires.
How to Choose the Right Size Fixture
Sizing a chandelier or pendant correctly is the step most people skip and most often regret.
For a chandelier over a dining table: measure the table length and subtract 12 inches on each end to find the maximum fixture diameter. A 72-inch table can handle a fixture up to 48 inches in diameter without overpowering the table. Most people buy fixtures that are too small for their tables.
For a chandelier in an open room without a table below: add the room’s length and width in feet. The result in inches is the approximate right diameter for the fixture. A 12 by 14-foot room (26 total) calls for a chandelier approximately 26 inches in diameter. This is a starting point rather than an absolute rule, but it’s a useful check against the instinct to undersize.
For pendants over a kitchen island: one pendant for every 2 feet of island length is the standard formula, with pendants sized to be proportional to the island width. A 4-foot island typically takes two pendants. A 6-foot island takes two or three depending on pendant size.
The Lighting Mistake Most People Make With McGee & Co
Buying a beautiful fixture and keeping the existing wiring setup that doesn’t work with it.
Dimmers are the most impactful lighting upgrade most people aren’t using. A rattan chandelier at full brightness and the same fixture on a dimmer set to 40% are two different products. The warmth and ambiance of the McGee lighting look requires dimmable bulbs on a dimmable switch. If your existing switch is a standard on/off, installing a dimmer switch — a $20 to $40 electrical project most people can do themselves — transforms how any quality fixture performs.
Bulb selection inside quality fixtures is also frequently wrong. A beautiful rattan shade filled with bright white LED bulbs cancels the warmth the shade is supposed to create. 2700K LED bulbs at a wattage appropriate for the fixture’s diffusion — warm enough to glow through the shade without being harsh — are what make quality fixtures perform the way they look like they should.