Kitchen lighting design tips - light fixtures, from track lighting & pendants

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Maybe the most important room in your home, the kitchen needs the right type and amount of lighting. This requires a blend of general and task lighting, cove lighting, combined with under cabinet lighting. to give your kitchen a variety of effects to cover all the requirements for good illumination. The kitchen is at the center of every home, so it's important to put a lot of thought into the lighting design.

Kitchen lighting is slightly unique in that it needs to be both functional and aesthetic, and it needs to be available every hour of the day or night. You never know when someone in the house will awake during the night hours, and have to prepare a “snack,” or it rains for days on end and everyone more or less takes up camping and cooking in the kitchen. Skylights are great, but like in cases like these two, you cannot always totally rely on them. So let’s look at some other options.

lighting ideas

Task areas: These are best lit with bright, shadow-less fluorescent bulbs, especially over a table or task area. To attach “spot lighting” to the underside of the higher cabinets is an efficient way to add task lighting. If you have no cabinets that would serve the purpose, then try some hanging lights from the ceiling in a halogen or incandescent bulb. Both of these have a more specific beam onto the area that you are wanting to light, and make excellent task lighting. If you have a hanging rack for pots and pans which hangs over a counter, this is also a great place to add lighting.
Ambient lighting: It is a general, overall lighting that completely brightens up the kitchen area eliminating shadows and filling up the empty spaces. Fluorescent lighting is great for the total room lighting. Choose a color temperature of 3000K or 3500K for a warmer, more inviting appearance. Try some indirect filling techniques like bouncing a fluorescent tube towards the ceiling for indirect lighting. You want the kitchen area light and cheery, so make sure the wall covering is s light color, and if there are lots of windows, utilize the light from them.
Accent lighting: It is a highlighted area that needs special directed lighting. This can be achieved with a “spot light” effect on 2 or 3 items that are unique and special in your home. A piece of artwork or some kind of collection or the food presentation area, all makes good choices for accent lighting.
for general lighting you should install recessed light fixtures that are mounted into the ceiling, this will give you good lighting to illuminate the whole room. Recessed down lights should be installed over your stove, as well as the sink, this will give you substantial task lighting.
if you have an island in your kitchen it's a good idea to place a light fixture that has three lights in it. This will give the island great task lighting and ambience as well.
next comes the kitchen table, this is an important area that requires a hanging ceiling fixture, such as a decorative mini pendant lamp.
for your upper cabinets you can install over cabinet lighting, to give your kitchen a soft glow, that offers an even roomier feel to it.
underneath your upper cabinets you can install recessed halogen light fixtures. The use of Halogen lights will give your kitchen a feeling of drama.

The current trend with kitchens is the contemporary look of brushed stainless steel, as well as recessed fixtures that hide in the ceiling, giving the room a cleaner feel. Although the modern looks of brushes steel is popular there are other styles that you might want to consider such as, tiffany, rustic, country, tropical and victorian.