Often referred to as the heart of the home, the kitchen sees a lot of action. From the place where you whip up a culinary storm to the gathering point for family dinners and updates on life, a lot goes on in this multi-functional room.
If you’re considering a kitchen design update, you’ve come to the right place. Today, we’re getting the creative juices flowing and looking at how lighting can impact your kitchen space – keeping in mind safety, practicality and ambience, and helping you design a well lit kitchen that helps you carry out a whole host of jobs with ease.
Safety first and foremost
It goes without saying that you’ll need to be able to see clearly when you’re cooking, and whether this means installing overhanging lights above your kitchen countertops or wall lights that illuminate the splashback behind your oven, these will be important considerations when it comes to choosing lighting.
From being able to chop up vegetables with confidence to checking your food items look healthy and as they should before they’re consumed, lighting has an important role to play. Whether you’re completely overhauling your kitchen or just refreshing your lighting, you’ll need to keep the layout of the space in mind when choosing which types of lighting are suited to where in the room.
Cabinet lighting is ideal in the kitchen because it can be hidden inside or under your units, so you won’t need to worry about space to fit it in and can still benefit from its practicality. Spotlights are often used by homeowners to highlight particular areas of the kitchen, and if you have a larger space, this allows you to segment different areas by their needs. For those with smaller kitchens, spotlights can be a simpler lighting option to ensure the whole room can be illuminated without the need for different overhead fixtures and fittings.
All about the ambience
If you’re lucky enough to have a large kitchen space, this can have both pros and cons. In terms of entertaining, you’ll be blessed with all of the surfaces and furniture you need to host, but you’ll also be met with challenges in terms of tying the whole room together – and this is where executing the fine art of ambience comes in.
Once the food prep is over, you can focus on setting the stage for the rest of the evening. In terms of dining, lighting can really change the mood and turn a mundane midweek meal into a romantic evening. While a lit candelabra as your centrepiece can help you achieve this, your room’s lighting will help you tie practicality in with ambience.
With this in mind, you’ll want to think about not only the design of the lighting above your dining area, but also the warmth of the bulbs you choose. While a subtle orange glow can bathe your room in a welcoming light, a stark white bulb will feel far more clinical and have the opposite effect.
Design and decoration
Your lighting options can be worked into your room’s design and even become decorative features in their own right. From free-standing lamps that frame the doorway that leads to the garden to hanging chandeliers above the dining area, if you want it to, every aspect of your lighting can have a role to play in the overall design of your kitchen space.
Colour will be an especially big part of your design and it’s worth pinning down your overall colour scheme before you begin considering the finer details. Whether you’re going bright and bold or seeking out a more neutral aesthetic, there’ll be a lighting option that complements your preferences, but if you don’t make these decisions at the start of the decorating process, you’ll find it more difficult further down the line.
From matching the lighting above your island to your quartz worktop colours to ensuring the lumens from the bulbs themselves don’t clash with your wall tiles, you’ll want to be savvy with your approach to decorating. This is also true if you’re keen to avoid glare from your worktops. Whether you decide on a professionally honed finish for your surfaces or you strategically place lampshades around the lights in this room, experiment with what works best for the lighting in your kitchen to avoid glare.
With a little creative thinking, there’s plenty your lighting choices can do to help you tie your room together and create a space that’s designed with safety, practicality and ambience in mind.
To find out more about kitchen granite worktops and how to match them to the rest of your kitchen space, get in touch with the Burlington Granite team today, Alternatively, if you’d like to receive a free quote, we’d be happy to help!