Smart Kitchen Investment: Lighting Too, for Function and Great Looks

Lighting will be one of the most overlooked and underappreciated aspects of a kitchen during the design process. There’s an art to lighting a kitchen, even though lighting usually goes unnoticed unless it is planned badly. That is not found until after the contractor is long gone.

Recall the times when kitchens have been lit with one fixture in the middle of the ceiling and perhaps some fluorescent beams that would constantly flicker? There’s no explanation for this anymore, thanks to the vast array of lighting options and industry experts accessible to devise a personalized plan for your kitchen.

I talked with two such experts, interior designer Katie Anderson and lighting designer Randall Whitehead, concerning the value of investing time and money into a proper lighting program, and how to design the best strategy for virtually any kitchen.

Katie Anderson Interior Design Consultants

“Most people never really consider lighting,” states Anderson. “But good or bad, you will feel its effects with time both physically and emotionally.”

Investing in a well-lit kitchen is a herculean blessing. One, it increasesquality of existence. Consider it this way: When you walk around an unevenly lit kitchen, your pupils have to constantly adapt to the vivid and dark spots. Over time this may result in eye fatigue, nausea and a general sense of fatigue.

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If, on the other hand, your own kitchen is evenly lit, it may be a more effective workspace — regardless of the time of day. And lights you can dim produce a more celebratory mood when guests come over.

Randall Whitehead Lighting Solutions

The second reason to get a designing a well-lit kitchen is improved resale value. “Kitchens and bathrooms are the 2 rooms that help sell a home the most,” notes Anderson. “No matter how far you’ve put to a kitchen to enhance it, home buyers are not likely to appreciate it if they can not properly see everything — or worse, they view the space as gloomy. A well-lit kitchen only reads to everybody.”

Katie Anderson Interior Design Consultants

A perfect kitchen lighting plan includes four kinds of light sources: task, accent, decorative as well as ambient. Some light sources may have several purposes.

Hughes Studio Architects

1. Task lighting. This is the light by which you work. It includes lighting mounted to the bottom of upper cabinets to light countertops, lighting directed toward the kitchen countertop and lighting in the pantry.

Fireclay Tile

The colour of task lighting is equally important. “If you would like the light source to seem like incandescent at full blast, then select 2,700 Kelvin,” advises Whitehead. “If you enjoy the colour of dimmed incandescent, which is my taste, start looking for a light source that’s 2,400 Kelvin. These colour temperatures will blend nicely with the incandescent sources in adjoining chambers”

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2. Accent lighting. This source (also called focal lighting) highlights art and decorative items on the walls and atop upper cabinets that don’t move all of the way to the ceiling.

“Recessed downlighting is a nice source of accent lighting,” says Anderson, “but people will need to recognize that such fittings produce a triangle of light and so need to be spaced according to the angled disperse they throw so there are no shadows.”

Randall Whitehead Lighting Solutions

3. Decorativelighting. This may include one or more pendant fixtures within an island or a peninsula. Additionally, it may be a chandelier over the dining area. “This type of light provides the jewelry in the kitchen,” says Whitehead.

Katie Anderson Interior Design Consultants

Pick a pendant or chandelier that has a warm shade of light plus also a dimmer switch so that it can place just the correct mood.

Hankins & Associates, Inc..

4. Ambient lighting. This indirect source offers an overall glow. “I like to put strip lighting over upper cabinets that don’t stretch all of the way up into the ceiling to make this kind of effect,” states Anderson. “It allows light to bounce off the ceiling”

Whitehead notes, “This result may also come from lighting mounted on the very top of support beams that run parallel to the floor in a kitchen with ceilings that are pitched”

Kenorah Design + Build Ltd..

Getting started with your own kitchen lighting program. To get the best results, consult with a lighting professional who will be able to produce a customized plan to suit your kitchen’s design, style and price range. You need lighting; you may also have them installed in the areas where they will help you the most.

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