Billiard Lighting Styles
Not Just Light That's Just Right!

Billiard Lighting comes in all shapes, sizes, colors and designs! And these are just a few of the factors that come into play when choosing billiard lighting for your game room / billiard room. You can narrow your lighting style even more by the college you attended, your favorite pro team or even favorite drink among many more themed lighting out there.

But no matter what type of lighting you decided to go with, when you’re choosing the type of light you want over your billiard table make sure you take into account not only the size of your billiard table but also the size of your room. You don’t want a huge monstrosity of a light taking away the focus of all the cool stuff in your room.

Keep Your Eyes On The Ball
Billiard Lighting and How To Avoid The Shadows!

That's right, focus during billiard play can become a problem after a few hours especially if the lighting you have is too bright, too large or too close to the table. Before you know it you'll have red eye or dry eye from the lights and you don’t need or want that. Billiard room lighting is important though. It adds atmosphere and also the necessary lighting to keep the games going strong all night long.

Besides having eye problems you'll want to get rid of distracting shadows that hide under the balls and the cushions. That is actually what good billiard lighting does for you; it rids your table of shadows by evenly lighting your table from cushion to cushion. This again goes back to the size of your table; if you have a 7-foot bar room pool table then a 1-swag lamp may do the trick. For 8-foot regular and especially 9 foot professional sized tables you're going to most likely need a 3-swag lamp or lights equivalent to keep the lighting just right for great billiard play.

So how high SHOULD billiard lamps hang above your table? Well one way to come close to a good distance is to hang it at the same height as your nose when standing by the table. To get it even closer a 30 inch distance is usually good. And to make sure you totally rid yourself of shadows raise or lower your lamp until the light from the lamp reaches the sides of the table.

Swag Lamps / Shade Lamps
Keeping Things Covered!

The basic lamp or billiard lighting you see in many bar rooms is the swag lamp or shade lamp. These types of lamps look great and come in many different colors and designs. From professional sports teams and college sports teams to popular drink products like pop and beer companies and so much more.

You can find 1 Swag, 2 Swag, 3 Swag and 4 Swag lamps to use as your billiard lighting. Again it really depends on how large your table as to how much light you may need. On the lampshade itself you'll have your teams name and logo or favorite drink, car company and much more. The lights are attached to one long pole that hangs down by a chain attached to your ceiling.

Add Some Style To Your Room
Tiffany Style Lighting

Tiffany style billiard lighting is similar to swag lighting except the lights, usually 3 are below one large rectangular lampshade usually measuring around 30 inches to 40 inches in length. It depends on personal style as to whether you'd prefer swag lighting or Tiffany style lighting but both do look great and work the same.

Tiffany style to me has a more "WOW" effect being they look rather large and have your favorite teams name spread across them surrounded by your team colors in glass or glass-like material. Also many Tiffany style billiard lights have some great colors and designs the swag lamps just can't compete with

Some of the these larger Tiffany style billiard lights come with just two lights instead of three, if that's the case then those are better fit for a 7 and possibly an 8 foot table. You'll definitely need 3 lights for a professional 9-foot table length though.

Let The Light Shine!
More Billiard Lighting Ideas For All Areas.

There are other types of billiard room lighting that would go great in your billiard room. A free standing swag lamp around 4 to 6 feet tall would be perfect around sitting areas. Again with your favorite team, drink or just come cool colors and designs on them look great.

Also if you have a bar area, bar top lamps with your favorite football team helmet as a base or other sports teams logo would look great.

Lighting is very important to a billiard room. You need lots of light in the right places to keep away the shadows and to ease eyestrain as the night wears on. Too much light though and you're in for a few headaches. Just don't get too fancy with too many lights hanging here and there. You need one above your billiard table and one above your poker table and that's about it. Otherwise your normal room/basement lighting will keep your room well lit. And remember you don't need 3 swag lighting above a poker table, 1 Swag is good enough. You only need the 3 Swag lights for larger pool tables or in rooms that are poorly lit in order to once again keep those shadows away.