Designing the Perfect Lighting for Kitchen

Kitchen is often the most used area of any home, while its lighting is generally overlooked though. Seeing that the kitchen also acts as a multifunctional space for many households where people cook, chat, eat and spend time together, the lighting should be flexible enough to meet the different requirements and moods of the people while enhancing the overall appearance of your kitchen. So, lighting in kitchen, essentially, must be brought into play to create a more functional and enjoyable space, while ensuring that it provides for tasks like food preparation, cooking and cleaning, and also creates an ambiance for social gatherings.

Moreover, lighting can be an affordable and convenient approach to bring in pleasant changes to the look of your kitchen. Smart positioning of lighting, indeed, can make a small kitchen appear larger, hide awkward structural design and even make up for poor natural light. However, it should be planned well in advance – and not leave it for later – so that you get more options. A well-planned kitchen lighting plan must set the right ambiance for cooking, eating and entertaining.

How to Plan Your Kitchen Lighting?

Take a look at the areas of your kitchen plan and consider the activities which will occur in each area. Some areas, like food preparation station, the kitchen sink and above the cooking hob, will call for task lighting, while other areas like the dining area require mood and accent lighting. After considering the kitchen’s accessible pattern of natural light, size and layout, explore different types of lighting fixtures available for the kitchen. Get a comprehensive idea on planning for lighting of your kitchen from the following points.

• Bear in mind that no single fixture can provide all the light required for different kitchen tasks, so incorporate lighting in layers. You can install a main overhead light with layers of smaller lights positioned in areas for different tasks, such as, near a food preparation station, over the gas stove and above the kitchen sink. It will also help to reduce the problem of glare.
• Ambient lighting is often ignored in cooking zones. It works perfectly in such areas and even fills the gaps left via task lighting. Not only it creates a warm glow, it is an affordable way to upgrade your kitchen.
• The well-positioned task lighting provides the perfect illumination for tasks, like reading recipes, chopping vegetables and such others. The best position for task lighting is between the work surface and a person’s head. Thus, lighting positioned under cabinets is ideal. The versatile strip lights make a popular choice to use as under cabinet lighting.
• Light dimmer switches make a practical and sensible choice to be used in the kitchen. Since bright light is required for tasks and dimmed lights help to create the ambiance during and after the meal, light dimmer switches help in customizing the lighting required as per the situation.
• Accent lighting provides your space with depth and dimension. For instance, if you have a cabinet to store decorative glassware or crockery, rope lights or puck lights can be installed in the cabinet to enhance its look and feel which otherwise gets ignored.
• Add wall sconces to highlight the special pieces of artwork in your kitchen. Moreover, sconces also work for ambient light. You must get energy efficient, low-voltage fixtures for wall sconces, like that of Havells.
• According to your preference, you must add pendant lights over your kitchen island. And instead of one, install three identical hanging pendant fixtures which are available in many styles from classic to modern. You can choose from the lamps of different wattage, according to the amount of kitchen lighting required.
• When considering your main overhead kitchen lighting options, you may either install one statement piece or two to three pendant fixtures over the space. If you wish to install many hanging fixtures, it will unnecessarily make your kitchen look cluttered. If you still need more lighting for work spaces, you can look for track lighting or under-cabinet lights.
• When choosing light fixtures, you must consider the color of your kitchen. As white color reflects light, you should get lower wattage lamps if you have a lot of white in your kitchen. And more wattage lamps if your kitchen color is darker.

To Sum Up

Following this, you might be in a better position to plan lighting for your kitchen. With the right balance of ambient, task, accent and decorative lighting, you can create a safe, functional and welcoming atmosphere in your kitchen. However, choosing the right light fixture might be a task as there are lots of options to choose from. Havells, a brand known for high-quality electrical products, offers a wide range of wall sconces, LED downlighters, LED lamps, LED surface fittings, LED strip lights, LED lamps and more of lighting fixtures, which are energy efficient and provide long-lasting performance. So, when you’ve got all under one roof, why go elsewhere? Let Havells adorn your kitchen while keeping it functional with its variety of lighting fixtures!