Using light to enhance your kitchen

Kitchens are the heart of every home and have entirely different lighting needs to any other room in the house. Not only is there the practical need to create a well-lit space for preparing food, but there’s also the very important function of setting up a homely and welcoming environment to entertain guests and share meals in.

We’ve built a lot of kitchens in our time and know exactly how important good lighting is to making the most of your overall living space. Through years of planning and constructing bespoke kitchens, we’ve been able to help our customers integrate strategic lighting into their own beautiful kitchen schemes.

Lighting trends

Technology has come a long way in the last few years and, with it, an entirely new approach to lighting your kitchen.

From fully-integrated Bluetooth or app-controlled systems to dimmable LED strips – kitchen lighting is more intelligent and more in tune with our lifestyles than ever before.

Certain systems can operate in several different areas at the same time; controlled independently or in multiple zones. These systems can create the perfect ambience appropriate to where you are in the kitchen at a certain time, something that’s particularly effective in open plan kitchens where it can be beneficial to create a sense of boundary or separateness from the main living space.

Pendant lighting

Pendant lighting, usually positioned over an island, is the place where you really get to be creative and install something that is beautiful in its own right - not just a giver of light! 

There is a huge range of options for pendant lights, from bare, exposed light bulbs, modern minimalist strips, retro 60's or industrial style lamps. The right choice of pendant can really compliment your kitchen. 

For the kitchen seen below, we incorporated some beautiful, original 1960's copper pendants to complement the gorgeous cherry grain of the framed cupboards and hand-built kitchen island.

The lamps worked perfectly with the aesthetic of the kitchen, providing crucial additional light to the island and, as they were on dimmer switches, beautiful mood lighting in the evening. With pendants, positioning is all-important, both in terms of the dispersal of light across the counter and also the distance from the counter itself. It’s critical that your head won't cast a shadow on the island while your working. This means pendant lights usually go in lower than you'd expect.

Natural lighting

When we’re talking about kitchen design, lighting isn’t all about the electrics. A well-planned kitchen also knows how to make the most of natural light and the way in which it enters the space. The right choice of blinds or curtains can enhance or mute brightness at certain times of the day and disperse it around the room effectively.

Combining the right natural and right electric light scheme is a tricky balance to strike, but is hugely important to the overall design of the room. Skilfully mixing ambient, task, natural and accent lighting is key to building a dynamic space that’s a joy to interact with.

If you’re not sure how to do this, we can help. Reach out through the link below for more information.