Your kitchen is the heart and soul of your home. Today’s kitchens, in fact, support a range of activities well beyond just cooking. Eating, entertaining, homework, brainstorming – these days, it all happens in the kitchen.
Such a highly-trafficked area requires an attractive, inviting, and functional lighting design that facilitates all that you do within that space. LED lighting is popular in St. Louis kitchens, and it’s a great way to achieve a range of looks for an attractive price.
Beyond its versatility, LED lighting design has a lot of advantages. You can achieve a lot of designer looks affordably using LED lighting. The bulbs themselves last much longer than incandescent bulbs, and they require only a fraction of the energy to light, meaning your energy bills might even go down too.
Types of LED Lighting for Kitchens
When people think about LED lighting, they often envision harsh fluorescent lights that cast a cold hue on the room. Today’s LEDs come in so many different varieties that this is certainly not reality anymore. Just about any type of lighting design can be achieved with LEDs.
Oversized Pendant LEDs
LED lighting does very well in oversized pendants. Match your kitchen hardware to the lighting fixtures will deliver a unified design throughout; for instance, your drawer pulls and your faucets can be matched to oversized pendants that hang over your island for a seamless look.
Uplighting
Uplighting is a popular use for LED lighting. For instance, you could install dimmer-controlled LEDs under your cabinets. They would not have to be on all the time and could be adjusted to set the mood.
LED Tape
LED tape is great for lighting the inside of your cabinets. LED tape could be applied inside the cabinet door and triggered when the door is opened. This creates a functional aspect as well as satisfying a design aesthetic as you could open cupboards at nighttime without having to turn on overhead lights.
Task Lighting
If you are like most people, you probably use your kitchen for a range of tasks like paying bills, doing homework, eating, cooking, food prep, talking on the phone, and so on. If you have different areas where these activities occur, installing task lighting in these areas will provide you with greater functionality. Keep in mind that task lighting is generally specific to a very small area. When you direct an LED downwards, it only really illuminates a two-foot space so it’s important to map out where task lighting is needed as there are likely several spots you will need to think about.
Some of the areas you might install task lighting include over the island, over the peninsula, in the pantry area, over a desk or prep area. Task lighting fixtures can be matched to your hardware scheme or even your bar stools to create a cohesive look that flows easily from your other interiors.
Layering
LED lighting can be layered to provide maximum functionality. For instance, you would have more intense under-cabinet lighting, task lighting, recessed lighting on top of the cabinets or in your crown moldings, decorative pendants, and so on. All of these various elements can be dimmed and controlled separately to create the mood and the feel you want.
Ambient Lighting
The general lighting scheme for the entire kitchen is what we refer to as ambient lighting. This takes into account any natural light while being able to mimic daytime light at any time of day.
When you think about ambient lighting, you will want to first consider the height of your ceilings. The higher the ceiling, the more ambient light you will need, and this means more fixtures.
Creating a lighting design that makes use of a range of light sources is always a good idea. Avoid creating lighting “dead-zones” (areas where the lighting is dim or non-existent) or “hot spots” (areas where lighting sources overlap making it excessively bright).
Some great examples of kitchen ambient lighting include:
Recessed downlights, which can also double as task lights if positioned strategically. Recessed downlights are most often arranged in a grid or a line and spaced four-to-five feet apart.
Ceiling-mount lighting fixtures provide you with flexibility as they can be mounted flush to the ceiling or slightly below. These lights reflect more light from the ceiling itself and distribute the light more evenly to the entire room. They can be used along with pendulum or zone lighting as needed.
If you are thinking about a kitchen remodel and are looking for some great LED kitchen lighting ideas to help you achieve the kitchen of your dreams, give us a call today.
