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Kitchen Lighting Design Guide

Kitchens are the most important room in your house.  Everyone tends to gather around the kitchen.  The reason for this is because the kitchen is a place of activity, where you know there will be people doing things.  If you don’t know anyone in the living room or backyard, you can always find someone (usually the host) in the kitchen.

Kitchens can be as beautiful as you want them to be.  There are many things that can be done to make it more beautiful, such as window treatments, contemporary home furniture, painting the walls, etc.  To make the kitchen even more well-designed and welcoming, add the correct lighting fixtures, especially in the cooking area.  Lighting can provide personality and attractiveness to the room.

A kitchen’s main function is for food preparation.  The sink and stove are the most important items to light as that is where the most important tasks take place.  The light should be focused on the countertops with under cabinet lighting and the kitchen cabinets.  Ideally, you want to first plug in and turn on your undercabinet lights and position them so that the light is just reaching the outside of your countertops.  Kitchen cabinets can be lit by a switch  that turns the lights on inside of the cabinets when the door swings open.  This is a great addition to a cabinet lighting system.

The right lighting can boost the visual appearance of your cooking area while ensuring that the room is comfortable to all visitors and family members.  Good lighting can also reduce the amount of errors and accidents in the space.  Eye fatigue is less common in areas of high illumination.  A person 60 years old may need as much as 15X the amount of light a 14 year old would need in the same space.  A lifetime of exposure to ultraviolet light changes the eye.  After the age of 30, the eye begins a deterioration process that reduces the ability of your eye to see.  Having several layers of light can help this.

Because of the wide variety of tasks that are performed in the kitchen and the aging eye, it is always useful to install a variety of lighting layers that provide flexible and adequate task lighting.  It is useful to apply a minimum of three layers in the kitchen.

Lighting is typically designed in 3 layers :

1.  The first layer provides an area with general illumination. also known as ambient lighting.  This layer allows you to see and walk about the area safely.  This is also the primary source of task lighting.  The ideal placement is to place the downlights approximately 27-30″ from the wall.  This allows the light to penetrate the wall cabinets when they are opened.  General illumination for kitchens is around 40-50 footcandles.  This brightness is probably similar to an office space as they are designed for 30-50 footcandles typically.  Keep in mind the color of the light should be 2700-3000K to give the warm cozy feel.  Be sure to accent the general / ambient lighting with task lighting, as downlights create shadows around your cabinetry.

2.  The second layer is task lighting, that allows you to perform specific tasks.  This is considered one of the best DIY (Do It Yourself) kitchen ideas.  The most common tasks in the kitchen are preparing and cooking food.  Task lighting should be free of distracting glare and shadows and bright enough to prevent eye strain.

3.  The third layer is accent lighting .  This adds a dramatic appeal to a room by highlighting items on the wall.  The most common items to light are paintings, sculptures, houseplants, or any other prized possessions.  These are usually lit by recessed and track lighting.  These items typically need to be lit brighter than general illumination by a 3:1 ratio.

Accenting your floors with toekick lighting can create an addition level of safety for your family or your guests especially at night.  Before LED’s, this was not possible.  But be careful choosing a LED fixture, as we  have seen many unfortunate events.

The type of light bulb is the next important step in the design.  Kitchen lamps typically come in incandescent, fluorescent, xenon, halogen, and LED.  The choices can be confusing.  If you are designing with traditional light sources, incandescent, halogen, or fluorescent light sources, you want to make it the easiest for the client to maintain the lamps.  Replacing many lamp types can become a headache for the end user.  If your client is concerned about using the most electrical power, select a light bulb that uses the least amount of kilowatts of electrical energy.  LED’s are the best light sources in terms of cost, efficiency, and color quality.

BEWARE:  LED Tape / Rope Light 

• Overheats - Decreases lifetime of the LED / Melts the adhesive tape on the back causing it to peel off where ever you placed it
• Overheats – Shifts the colors of the white LED’s – causes inconsistant white light colors on your backwash / countertops /cove / toekick
• Hard to install – Soldering involved with most available systems

Lighting Effects :

To enlarge the space, light the vertical surfaces of the space.

To create a more intimate space, light the horizonal surfaces of the space.  Warm white light (2700K) creates a warm, cozy, and open mood.

Lighting design process :

1.  Gather information on  your project – where you want the light, accessibility to power, dimensions of cabinets, and all other relevant information

2.  Gather ideas about how the lighting should look and feel

3.  Implement the lighting plan