Attaining the appropriate home lighting for the rooms in your home can be complicated. There are bright lights, soft lights, pendant lights, downlights, wall lights, chandeliers, LED lights, etc. It can take a lot of time and effort to select the perfect lights for you and the space you want to live in.
If you're looking to learn a little more about lighting in kitchen design, you've come to the right place. Here, we discuss how lighting correlates and aids kitchen design as well the importance of your making the right choice of lighting in your kitchen space.
The Correlation Between The Kitchen Design And Its Lighting
The correct design of the kitchen must feature the importance of lighting, capable of influencing the sensory perception of the environments, enhancing them as a whole. Light affects our sensory perception and is capable of enhancing spaces by making them more functional - according to the needs of the room -, comfortable, and more beautiful.
Studying the right amount of light inside each room of the house including the kitchen affects liveability and the sensation of perceived comfort. It is a very important aspect that must be taken care of right from the design stage based on the size of the room and its intended use. For example, if you want to illuminate a bedroom in the most correct way it will be necessary to choose warm lights with different light intensities.
In the kitchen, a single light fixture is not enough because the countertops and hob must be properly lit to facilitate food preparation and cleaning. When you have to choose the lamp for the kitchen, you must also pay particular attention to the material of the lamp which must be resistant to heat, steam and easy to clean. It will also be necessary to consider the colours of the walls, the amount of natural light that enters from the outside, and what are the furnishing elements that you intend to position in the room.
Why is Lighting in Kitchen Design So Important?
When choosing the lights in your kitchen design, you must consider the size of the room, the colours of the walls and furnishings, understand what atmosphere you intend to evoke and find the perfect balance between indirect and fixed lighting. Outlined below are the reasons why lighting is important in kitchen design.
1. Makes the Kitchen More Functional
Choosing the wrong type of lighting for an environment negatively affects its liveability. Lighting design is not only a question of style or designs but also and above all a question of functionality.
If you intend to enhance specific points, such as furnishing accessories and architectural elements present in the room or you simply want to give more light to the kitchen countertops or Kitchen Island, ceiling lights, wall lights, recessed or suspended lamps, direct light is the most suitable solution. Making an environment more functional by choosing the right type of lighting based on the intended use of the various areas of the room means first of all improving one's living comfort and making the most of the potential of the environment.
If you own a kitchen with a peninsula, they could consider the choice of applying an imposing chandelier in correspondence with it. Or you can opt for a lighting system with recessed spotlights, positioned in strategic points, to distribute the light evenly in several points of the kitchen. If you have a pantry in the kitchen, you can apply LED strips inside to have a complete view of the contents, also giving a modern and sophisticated touch.
2. Light Modulates The Perception of Colours
Did you know that colour affects the perception that one has of the size of the object or space? Light colours tend to dilate the perception of size, dark ones reduce it. Therefore, if you paint the walls of a room with light shades, the environment will tend to seem larger and more spacious. If you choose dark shades, however, the room will seem smaller. The same goes for objects.
But regardless of the colour chosen to paint the wall or walls of a room, what is important to remember is that lighting can accentuate and make the chromatic charge of the chosen colour more noticeable. An ad hoc lighting design will therefore make it possible to best enhance the colour chosen for the room.
As a general rule, you must have general or ambient lighting in the middle of the kitchen. This can be done if you install flush mounts or kitchen ceiling lights. For kitchen island lighting or breakfast counters, you may want to opt for recessed lights also known as downlights or pendant lights since they help accentuate what you have on the table.
3. It Gives The Atmosphere You Want
Light yes, but … at what temperature? We must not forget the importance of the temperature of the light.
Lighting affects both perceived dimensions, capable of making a room seem larger or smaller, but also modifies its atmosphere by affecting the mood of those who enter that particular environment. How? Through the colour temperature of the light fixtures.
In addition to the style, design, and materials of the kitchen lighting design with attention to the kitchen island lighting, the colour temperature must also be taken into consideration because the sum of all these elements will influence the creation of the sought-after atmosphere.
Warm lights (with a colour temperature below 3,300 K) help create a more welcoming and pleasant atmosphere. A warm light which is usually 2000 to 3000 kelvin is more suitable for a kitchen. It gives a kind of soft yellowish-white glow.
Conclusion
In a well thought out interior design project, lighting is functional to the creation of an environment in which people will feel at ease. In the kitchen, unlike in other rooms, lighting is not only an aesthetic factor, as it is necessary to have an excellent view of the room in which you are going to cook.
