The bad part:
(1) It took us about 4 hours to assemble and hang this fixture. The cost of our labor exceeded the price of the fixture.
(2) The one page `instruction manual' is a terse hybrid of Chinese/English; e.g., "Avoid Child Swing!" presumably means "do not allow children to swing from chandelier". (The fixture is manufactured in China, presumably the instruction page was written there as well.) The diagrams are very low-resolution. For example, you will need to infer that the little black square is a set-screw. Even though we are handy (e.g., we wired our own home including the service panel) assembling this light was a frustrating exercise.
(3) The back panel (upper-most part of this fixture) that attaches to the ceiling electrical box would be greatly improved if it were more rigid. We added a stiffening bar rather than opt to use two sheetrock anchors a good decision when we were later forced to rotate box about 5 degrees to compensate for a misalignment of parts (see section 7 below).
(4) The instructions direct you to "loosen" a screw when they really mean "remove" screw. Elsewhere they say to back-out a hex screw, and show such in diagram, but fail to mention (or show) that there are two screws that need to be removed.
(5) Getting the wires cut to the correct length so that the light-bar AND counter-weight are both parallel to counter was an iterative process.
(6) This fixture uses six bi-pin "G4" xenon bulbs. Bi-pin bulb sockets are notoriously unreliable. Sure enough, one socket forms intermittent contact with bulb's pins and bulb occasionally fails to light. The 20-watt bulbs get very hot.
(7) Despite using a laser level to `perfectly' align the ceiling-mounted base to be parallel to the island counter, the light was visibly misaligned. This due to an odd design that has the two supporting wires (that are also electrical conductors) attached to opposite rails in an asymmetric fashion. While this makes electrical sense, it could have been done differently, eliminating the misalignment of the rails relative to the base.
After all this work, we just pray that the fixture holds up.
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I saw this for over $1,000 in some stores and have also seen it featured in the dining rooms of 2 homes on "million dollar real estate". It's simply elegantly simple. No one seems to be able to figure how it powers through the thin wires without them being "live" wires but it does...perhaps the middle bar does something; I am no electrician but men are always the ones to remark on that.It lights up the dining table down the middle rather than one mere spot. It is simple to change bulbs and you merely move the middle bar in the middle to raise or lower it so it's far easier to hang and get in the "exact right place" than any other chandelier I've had.
I'm including a photo of my kitchen table so you can see what it looks like above a table. (go to the product listing and look under the product photo for the reviewer photos. Please note that unfortunately I didn't have it turned on during this photo but I wasn't taking a photo of the chandelier at that time--just some photos before a party. But you get the size and look from this photo anyway. You can see how it looks lit from the product listing--glows like upside down suspended candles.) Obviously I have a very modern home and this just fits perfectly with it...I love it. This actually installed easily without an electrician for me but I wouldn't recommend that to everyone...
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