Kitchen Lighting Plan
Like any other room of your home, your kitchen too, requires a nice well-thought-out lighting plan. Nowadays kitchens are not just restricted to cooking meals, but also have many more functions. For many people, it is the most frequently used place in the house. Apart from the preparation of meals, kitchens, at present, also make a place for the kids to do homework, parents to assess the bills, reading, eating, and watching TV. Given all these reasons, it is essential to have adequate as well as flexible kitchen lighting.
General Lighting
While devising a lighting plan for kitchen, the first thing that comes to mind is general lighting i.e. the light that'll be used more often than not. If it's a small kitchen, just one light in the center will provide the general light. Since most of kitchens are larger these days, perhaps a single light fixture in the center will not meet the lighting needs. So, the best solution is to go for recessed lighting as it is an excellent way to provide general lighting in a kitchen in a neat and clean manner.
Right Placement
Right placement of the lights is very important. While designing a layout for the kitchen's general lighting, consider the areas where tasks will be done. These areas comprise of counters, islands and tables. By lighting these areas in most of the kitchens, the rest of the room too gets a good spread of general light. You can put the recessed lights fall out on the ceiling in a way that they are directly over the outside edge of the cabinets. The point here is getting the lights close enough to the work area. Don't ignore any corners that are left dark. If your kitchen has an island, install 2 or 3 pendant lights over it, to provide a stunning look to your kitchen.
Task Lighting
Task Lighting is important in the kitchen to provide direct light over the counters, stove and sink. Placing one or two small recessed lights over the sink is attractive as well as useful. Chimney lights can provide sufficient light over the stove. To illuminate the counters, you can use under cabinet lighting in the form of simple fluorescent fixtures. Another nice lighting affect can be provided by using low voltage linear track that can be dimmed and endow very good light to the counters. You can also use xenon fixtures and halogen fixtures; however, xenon is definitely better as it has a longer bulb life than halogen.
Accent Lighting
After you're done with general lighting and task lighting, the last thing to work on is accent lighting. Some kitchens have space above the cabinets. By providing lighting on top of the cabinets, such kitchens can look simply brilliant. Tray ceilings with crown molding can also be helped very much from this type of lighting. To make your kitchen look extraordinary, you can use either a low voltage type track or rope light. So, following the right kitchen lighting plan, you can make your dream kitchen in next to no time.
Kitchen Lighting
Whenever the talk is about decorating the kitchen, one of the aspects that most of the people tend to overlook comprises of the lighting. However, since a person, more specifically the woman of the house, spends quite a lot of his/her time in the kitchen, good lighting becomes one of the most important features of the overall decor. When it comes to kitchen lighting, it is vital to ensure that not only is it enough, but also that it is not too excessive. At the same time, it should go well with the architectural details and overall decoration theme of the kitchen. Let us explore some ideas on kitchen lighting.
Types Of Kitchen Lighting
Functional Lighting
Functional lighting, as the very name suggests, is used to get tasks accomplished in the kitchen. Apart from that, it is aimed at helping you find things in cabinets and drawers as well move around the room safely. Amongst the common kitchen functional lighting fixtures are fluorescents, recessed lights, and low voltage lighting. Of all the three, recessed lights can be used for task lighting purposes as well, especially over the sink and stove.
Decorative Lighting
Decorative lighting fixtures are, more often than not, meant for ornamental purpose, to impart a specific look to your kitchen or emphasize specific areas. For instance, you can use it to highlight the family eating area. In hardly a few cases can such lighting help you accomplish the kitchen tasks, say when it is used to highlight as well as provide light over an island. Wrought iron, colored glass, pewter and satin nickel lighting fixtures are in vogue these days.
Some Tips
* While deciding on the number as well as type of lighting fixtures in your kitchen, it is necessary to take the size of the room into consideration.
* The main work areas in the kitchen, such as the sink, stove, countertop, island and the areas over and below the cabinets, should be properly lit. Here, you can also make use of task lighting.
* Apart from the actual cooking, majority of the kitchen activities are undertaken at the table. So, it is necessary to light it up properly. You can use a pendant or chandelier fixture for the purpose, providing a dimmer switch alongside.
* While installing the lighting fixture, make sure that after turning on the light, no shadows are created on the areas where majority of the cooking tasks take place.
* Using dimmers for all the lights in your kitchen is a good idea, as you will be able to adjust the intensity of the light according to your mood.
* In case you are planning to use colored lights for your kitchen, try to stick to same color for all the kitchen lighting.
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