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A kitchen is a medium-sized room used for preparing and storing food, as well as supporting the cleanliness of the home. Modern kitchens tend to be larger, merging with dining and breakfast areas to become a central hub of family gatherings. The kitchen has a number of areas for preparing food, washing, cleaning, cooking and eating, as well as plentiful storage cabinets for various kinds of foods and other items. A larger kitchen could also feature a kitchen island with seating such as stools, or a breakfast table with chairs.

The Lighting you'll need in a Kitchen

Kitchens are usually brightly lit so that food preparation can be performed safely and small items in drawers and cupboards can more easily be found. People may come and go often to the fridge or freezer, using appliances and stopping off for a chat. The whole family or guests may even gather at the island for meals.

Adapting your lighting choices to how people will use the room is important. While kitchen designs can be quite complex and feature unique lighting options, here are our general recommendations of lighting for kitchens:

Overhead ceiling lights are needed to provide ample bright light in the kitchen. You'll need enough headroom in the areas where people will be walking, so that they can walk underneath the light fixtures. If your kitchen does not feature an island, or you cannot hang lights over a work surface, you'll need to opt for smaller light fixtures.
Chandeliers and pendants can be mounted as ceiling lights, provided you have enough clearance. You'll need either higher ceilings, or place the fixtures over furniture. Kitchen island pendants work very well over an island or bar area, while regular pendants work well over a breakfast table.
Semi-flush or flush-mounted lights are mounted close to the ceiling, and also leave plenty of headroom for walking underneath. They can placed in a few areas to brighten up the overall kitchen space.
Recessed "pot" lights are inset into the ceiling itself, taking up no space in the room. You'll need several of them across the kitchen ceiling to provide adequate light. They give a generally more modern look to the room.
Track Lighting or Spot Lights can often be found in a kitchen. These are one or more lights mounted on a canopy or track, which allows you to move and aim the individual light beams. They allow you to highlight specific parts of the kitchen but will leave other areas less lit.
Under-cabinet lights are often found in kitchens, mounted like a strip of LEDs underneath cabinets or inside of cupboards. Sometimes they are more decorative for showing off chinaware etc, or provide helpful soft accent lighting directly near to countertops or in dark cupboards.
Add a ceiling fan to help with ventilation, heating and cooling. They can be placed over a seating area or in the center of the kitchen and can double as a light fixture. Just make sure there is enough headroom for walking underneath if needed. Ceiling-hugger fans can maximize the clearance by hugging close to the ceiling. But note that the fan could blow countertop items around.
Accent Lights might include a night light. People often visit the kitchen in nighttime hours and a night light helps to minimize wakefulness while giving just enough light to navigate the kitchen.

kitchen light fixtures

The use of Lighting in your Kitchen

The main function of your lighting should be to help people to see in the dark, especially in the evening and at night. Kitchen usually feature bright light, backed up with some less-bright lighting such as undercabinet or night lights for minimal uses. Make sure you have enough light for food preparation and dining purposes.

Think about how people will use the room, where they will spend the most time and what they will be doing. Will they be sitting in certain areas? Performing tasks? Moving around? Will they be focusing on things close to themselves or at a distance?

Ambient Lighting is when the light is bright and spreads out in all directions, lighting up most of the room. Ambient light can also be background light. It is less focused and more diffused as an overall brightness. Ceiling lights help to create ambient lighting in a kitchen.
Task Lighting is when the light is more focused into a smaller area, possibly aimed in its direction, and is used when performing tasks. Such as when preparing food or eating breakfast. You'll need light fixtures nearby such as pendants or island lights, so that you can see what you're doing.
Accent Lighting comes from small accents of light generally in the background. This are the finishing touches such ight lights, spot lights, accent lamps and under-or-in-cabinet lighting. The amount of light output is usually less and limited to a smaller area.

kitchen ceiling lights

Where to put Lighting in a Kitchen

Main Light Fixtures

In a kitchen you'll need to consider whether you'll have an island or a table or neither. If there is an island or table, consider an island light, or alternatively a few pendant lights. These can hang directly over the furniture surface and put light close to where it's needed.

If your kitchen is more open with regular countertops and cupboards, like a galley kitchen, you'll want one or two fairly central light fixtures on the ceiling. Since people will be walking below, and unless you have very high ceilings to support a pendant or chandelier, you should opt for semi-flush mount lights, flush-mount lighting, or low-profile ceiling fans with lights.

If the room is longer than square, consider breaking it up into sections like separate rectangles, with one light in the center of each. Centrally positioned lights will emit light in all directions and light up most of the room.

Secondary Light Fixtures

You can provide additional layers and levels of light by adding some separate lighting options to the kitchen. These could be undercabinet lights, wall lights if you have room, or mini pendants over a bar or counter.

Task Light Fixtures

If you have other small areas which occasionally need brighter light, such as a breakfast table, consider a pendant light or floor lamp nearby. For the task of eating at the kitchen island, pendants or island lights usually cover all the bases. Remember also you can add undercabinet or in-cabinet lighting to help with the task of identifying items.

Consider eyesight and glare

When placing lighting in a kitchen, remember that light comes from a light bulb in most cases. The light may or may not be covered in all directions. For example, sitting below an overhead pendant light with a bulb that shines downward, if the pendant is high up near the ceiling it may shine into people's eyes who are sitting nearby.

Think about what direction the light will shine and what the line of sight will be. You might benefit from an overhead light when needed, but you may not want it shining in your face when seated at a countertop.

kitchen lighting ideas

How much Lighting does your Kitchen need?

The amount of light needed in a kitchen is usually at a high level compared to other rooms. Also the size of the room and the natural lighting coming in through windows will affect the amount of light needed.

Light is best measured in lumens, which is a measure of how much light reaches a surface at a given distance. In general it means "brightness" in a standardized way. You'll need to calculate an idea of how much light you want in the room, and then try to aim to achieve this across your light fixtures and lamps.

A general approach is as follows:

Measure the length and width of the room in feet..
Multiply the two numbers to get the "square feet".
Multiply the square feet by the amount of lumens needed per square foot for the room - for a kitchen this is 40-80 lumens per square foot.

For example in an 10 x 12 foot kitchen:

10 x 12 = 120 square feet.
120 x 40 = 4800 total lumens on the low end.
120 x 80 = 9600 lumens on the high end.

In terms of light bulbs: A single 60-watt incandescent light bulb outputs about 800 lumens. If you were using purely 60-watt bulbs, you'd need at least e.g. 4800 / 800 = 6 light bulbs minimally, up to 9600 / 800 = 12 bulbs maximally. So roughly 6 to 12 light bulbs at 60 watts each would be needed for a kitchen.

kitchen island lighting