When it comes to lighting in your kitchen, the general advice is to add lots but to do so in layers and make sure that you control each of these layers individually. Lighting breaks down into three main sections, ambient, task, and decorative.
Ambient Lighting
Ambient lighting means the main lighting in your ceiling, typically LED recessed lights or pot lights, whatever you want to call them. This is the lighting to cover the whole room and give that general overall coverage.
The aim with ambient light is to flood the room evenly with light, so you want enough lights to cover the room but not so many that the light is overlapping on one another and it feels like you’re just standing on the surface of the sun.
Factors That Affect Placement
Lighting Can Make Your Kitchen A Masterpiece
Look at the size and shape of the room as well as the kitchen layout to determine where you need to place these lights. The larger the diameter of the downlights, the bigger the light coverage from them, so you might not need as many lights or you might be able to space them out slightly further apart and still achieve the same coverage. It gives a luxury look to your kitchen.
You also need to consider your ceiling, where the joists are, as well as any architectural features such as beams or skylights, as this might restrict where you can physically install the downlights.
Positioning the First Row of Lights
Start with the first row of lighting off from the wall, and a good general rule is to try and position these lights in line with the edge of your countertop, about 60 centimeters or about 24 inches off the wall.
This is far enough in front of any wall cabinets that the light will light the whole cabinet, and not too far off the wall that when you’re standing working at the countertop the light’s behind you and creates a shadow.
Task Lighting
Task lighting is under cabinet lighting and pendant lighting. Under cabinet lighting can be really important for a functional kitchen, giving that extra light needed for those day-to-day tasks like actually prepping and cooking food, since ambient lighting is higher up and generally much softer by the time it comes down and reaches the countertop.
Choosing Under Cabinet Lighting
There are lots of different under cabinet lighting options on the market, from LED color changing strips to individual lights fitted at the back of your wall cabinets and even recessed lights in them as well.
LED strip lighting gives a better, more even, and wider light coverage than any individual lights or spots that might just give you these pockets of light, and locating the light strip towards the front edge of the wall cabinet gives better coverage of light over the whole countertop area rather than only lighting the back of the countertop and the wall.
Planning the Wiring
If you’re designing a new kitchen or remodeling it, plan this in early so your electrician can get the wires in place, and if you’re retrofitting some under cabinet lighting, you may be able to hide the wiring or might have to surface mount them, or get lights that clip on and are battery operated with a remote.
Positioning Pendant Lights
Pendant lights over a kitchen island or peninsula bring that more intense lighting down closer to your countertops, giving that more practical task lighting.
The general rule is to position the bottom of the light fixture somewhere between 75 and 90 centimeters, or 30 to 36 inches, above your countertop, though the exact height will depend on your height and, to some extent, the height of your ceilings.
Decorative Lighting
Decorative lighting is anything like in cabinet lights for glass fronted wall cabinets, internal drawer lighting, lighting inside a larder cupboard, strip lighting underneath the countertop at the front edge of your cabinets, or plinth lighting where the strip light is underneath the bottom of your base cabinet.
Calculating the Lumens Needed
The first step to designing kitchen lighting is figuring out the square footage of the room, then going over to a calculator, selecting the room type, and accounting for dark finishes and ceiling height to know how many lumens are needed.
Placing Downlights for Function
Downlights should be located about 4 to 6 inches away from the leading edge of the base cabinets, which allows light down into those base cabinets while not casting a shadow onto the countertop where you’re working.
Adding Focal Point and Island Lighting
Illuminating a hood vent as a focal point, downlights over the sink, and continuing along the counter all add to the lumen total. Decorative lights over an island can be kept closer to the ceiling rather than hanging down like pendants, so they don’t block sight lines if you’re standing around the island hosting a party.