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Lighting Your Kitchen
Good lighting is an important aspect of your kitchen décor. It can enhance the colors used in the kitchen and get the look right. Large or small kitchens, just cooking food or a kitchen with the dining area, all decide the lighting system to be used.
Efficient lighting
Key to having an efficient lighting for your kitchen is choosing the most practical and functional lighting systems that actually serve the purpose. Strip lights under the wall units are best suited for modern kitchen where space is usually a major concern. These illuminate every corner of the kitchen making your job easy. Having a single switch to control all the lights is perfect than groping for each single light switch.
Focused lighting
Use focused single lights for your dining area or the kitchen work space. Hanging lights or small chandeliers can be used for the dining area. Recessed lights in the ceiling at appropriate places are another lighting alternative. Use bar lights or spot lights to illuminate a particular area for the focal point. Using chimney lighting right above the stoves can be used for precise focus while cooking.
Backdrop lighting
For a dimmer look and to get the most of background lighting for a quite dinner make use of dim recessed lighting in the ceiling or install lights between the wall unit and the ceiling space.
Lamps suspended over the work space or dining area provide good illumination.
Some useful tips
- Before getting the kitchen lighting done, have a print of your kitchen; try to know your kitchen dimensions. Get to know -how high is the ceiling? Where the doors are located? What is the space between the cabinets and the ceiling? Space between the cabinets and the counter tops .Have a general idea of how many and what kind of lighting will be needed instead of being vague.
- Make sure that the main work areas like the stove and sink areas are well lit. Task lights can be used for these.
- For a Television set in the kitchen, make sure that the glare of the lights does not fall on the screen.
- Colored lights for the kitchen is the in these days, make sure to use a similar colored lighting for the entire kitchen.
- Wrought iron, rust and nickel are some of the options for decorative kitchen lighting.
- For a kitchen with darker color schemes, more the lights the better, see to it that all the important corners are brightly lit as the kitchen might look dim and smaller.
- If your kitchen is all metal, choose steel or iron lighting fixtures.
- Halogen bulbs last much longer than luminescent light, replace some fixtures to accommodate halogen lamps.
- If your kitchen has fluorescent home lighting fixtures, pick the latest CFL flood-light lamps which save energy. These lights give your kitchen a makeover and a facelift; with this your kitchen appliances look the way they looked in day light.
- Make sure that the wiring is done well and all plug points are intact.