Tips for Updating Your Kitchen's Lighting
One way to upgrade your kitchen without pulling out cabinetry or changing the floor plan is to enhance the lighting. A room's illumination is crucial because it affects its atmosphere and functionality. While you can get lighting ideas from an electrician, who will be familiar with the options, here are several tips to get you started.
Ambient Lighting
The ambient lighting of a room provides its general brightness level. Ideally, the lighting will be consistently dispersed around the kitchen, not glaring in one spot and faint in another. To achieve this, you need a sprinkling of lights around the space rather than one central globe. For example, you can spread recessed ceiling lights over the ceiling. By not protruding into the room, these fixtures have a streamlined effect. An electrician can fit dimmers so you can adjust the brightness to create mood lighting at night.
Task Lighting
When you're in the kitchen, you will often be doing tasks requiring targeted lighting, such as preparing food or reading at a dining table. For these activities, you need task lighting. One example of this is undercabinet strip lights to brighten the countertop. You can also fit a pendant light over the kitchen island or table to shed brightness on those surfaces. Pendant lights also add a decorative touch to the room, coming in varied styles and using diverse materials, such as metal and even paper.
Accent Lighting
Have you hung a beautiful piece of artwork on the wall that is not being appreciated because it's in a shaded area? If this is happening in your kitchen, you can install accent lighting. These fixtures are intended to highlight a particular feature. You could fit a wall sconce to gently illuminate the artwork without glaring. You can also install track lights, which can be angled in different directions.
The Benefit of Lighting Layers
The benefit of varied light sources is that they allow you to adapt the room to the moment. You can turn on the undercabinet lights when cooking or at night to add mood, turning the other lights off. Alternatively, you could use the dimmer to soften the ceiling lights.
You can also use the lighting to give the impression of a larger kitchen by ensuring there are no dark corners. Dim spots tend to give the impression of a smaller room.
Another benefit of updating the lighting is that it may reduce energy bills if you connect LED globes instead of inefficient ones. An electrician can suggest ways to make the lighting energy efficient.
Reach out to a local electrician for more info.
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