ARTICLE

Kitchen lighting

These days, the kitchen is a hub of activity where we do more than just whip up the family’s meals, so your lighting has to be flexible: illuminating work stations for cooking and offering a warm, welcoming glow for dining and entertaining. However, don’t attempt the electrics yourself – this is one area of expertise that requires the services of an accredited professional. This is also the perfect time to have an electrician fit extra sockets and a plumber to do any necessary work.

Kitchen lighting

© John Cullen Lighting

Tips for a well-lit kitchen

  • Install a pull-down ceiling pendant over a dining table to control the pool of light thrown over the table and make the space bright at breakfast time and intimate in the evening.
  • Exposed light fittings collect grime which cooking creates, so where possible opt for recessed or semi-recessed fittings. Also, if the bulb is well recessed, the object you are lighting will become the key focus rather than the light source itself.
  • Avoid creating lines of downlights in the ceiling as your kitchen could end up looking more like an office. Instead, think of what you want to light and focus the downlight over a dining table or a work island for instance.
  • Don’t just think practically – have fun with lights too.
  • Think about investing in a retro neon sign that casts a blue or pink glow over your room, or look for novelty or fairy lights that add a light-hearted touch as well as casting a twinkling light over your room.

Task Lighting
Safety must come first in any kitchen as you’re constantly using sharp knives, scalding water and hot pans. For high activity areas where you’ll be preparing food you need plenty of illumination, so work out which areas you’ll be using for practical purposes and install task lighting – i.e., focused, directional, bright light. To avoid task lights throwing shadows over your work surfaces, make sure you position them directly above or slightly in front of where you stand to prepare food. The best place is on the wall or below cupboards. Install your task lighting on a different circuit than your mood lighting to give you more flexibility in your lighting scheme.

Downlights
Downlights provide a light that washes over your kitchen to provide a general ambient glow. Choose halogen lights if you like clean, sparkling white illumination and put them on a dimmer switch so you can adjust the clarity to change the mood in the room. If you install more than one dimmer, you can create a variety of lighting effects – almost like building layers of light to give depth and warmth to the kitchen.

Light at different levels
Think of lighting as a design tool to emphasise or detract from good or bad features in a room. For example, if you have a really high ceiling which looks gloomy, use it to its best advantage by installing uplights on the top of kitchen cabinets to throw a general ambient light over the whole room. This will reduce your need for downlights, too. And if your kitchen is galley-style or cramped, choose downlights such as John Cullen’s Polestar - it gives a warm glow to the room and bounces light around, giving the feeling of space. Think about using light down near the floor, too, to wash a glow over the floor. If you have a central island, install lights in the plinth so it appears to float.

Light for decoration
If you have features in your kitchen that are particularly attractive, show them off using light. Draw attention to shelves by installing lights underneath; fit downlights into glass display cabinets to show off a collection of china; or use picture lights on the wall to draw the eye to a beautiful print or poster.

Related sections: Kitchen , Space & light , Planning & renovating

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