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Importance of lighting in a kitchen

Kitchen lighting is sometimes overlooked by homeowners… but it shouldn’t be! Whether it’s used to compliment style and illuminate focal points or it’s to ensure visibility for practical purposes kitchen lights go a long way to creating the perfect kitchen. Technology has brought with it great choice, however sometimes too many variations can cause problems, Halogen, Low energy lighting or Led which one should you choose and then once you have made that choice what colour of lighting is best.
Then there is the decision as to where the lighting should be placed. So lets start with position. Generally in a kitchen there are five different lighting positions;

  1. Ceiling lighting; to provide general overall light pattern; lighting your whole room.
  2. Plinth lighting; usually LED spots or strips to provide a runway affect, an atmospheric light and very low level.
  3. Display lighting; found in glass fronted cabinets and in over mantle shelving to provide targeted light to illuminate a particular object or space.
  4. Under wall unit lighting; designed to illuminate your working areas in front of you.
  5. Over wall unit lighting; either facing down to illuminate the area or washing up to illuminate the ceiling. Every kitchen and every client will be different however as a general rule LED is far more energy efficient than Halogen and provides an identical light for a fraction of the running costs. Low energy fluorescents are generally a soft light which do not come on in full power and slowly warm up. LED strip lights are numerous little individual lights which come on a strip and can be installed in areas where conventional lighting cannot be installed.

Basic types of kitchen lighting

General illumination maintains a specific light level in a room; in a kitchen such illumination may include recessed and over-cabinet lighting. Incandescent lights, which tend to be more yellow, and fluorescent lights, which are whiter, are good types of general lighting.

Highlighting and accenting brings the light level up to about three times the general illumination level in order to point up a specific feature, such as a decorative range hood, carved cabinet doors, etc. Toespace lighting, a good example of this type of lighting, makes cabinets appear to float above the floor; and over-cabinet lighting makes cabinets look higher by expanding the space above them.

Task lighting provides illumination for specific tasks, such as cooking, reading, etc. It can be located on the wall above the work area or under the cabinets above the area.