Your kitchen is one of the most visited places in your home. Because of this, it’s essential to make it look visually pleasing, inviting, and functional. So, how do you do this? We recommend starting by incorporating a variety of kitchen lights! With a well-thought-out lighting plan and a good selection of lights, you can transform your space into a paradise!
Some must-have kitchen lights that you should include in your list are downlights, under cabinet lights, plinth lights and kitchen ceiling lights (ceiling spotlights). But feel free to add more if that’s what your design plan requires! Just make sure that you have sufficient task lights for your meal prep and cooking.
How Many Lumens do I Need to Light a Kitchen?
Proper lighting is essential for any space. It can either make you go "wow" or "ugh". So, to set up the best lighting plan for your kitchen, you need to know how many lumens you need to make it magnificent. People have different kitchen sizes, so there's no standard lumens count that you can follow. However, there is a way to compute it. Here's what you got to do:
- Measure the kitchen’s square foot (L x W = square foot).
- Identify the foot candle (measurement telling how bright a light source is one foot away) in your kitchen. For the kitchen, it's 30 - 40 foot candles, and for the kitchen workspace, 70 - 80 foot candles.
- Multiply the kitchen measurement (square foot) by the foot candle, then you'll get the lumens to count that you'll need.
Generally, the kitchen requires around 3,000 – 4,000 lumens, while its work areas require 7,000 – 8,000 lumens. Well, if you want to get a more accurate prescription for your space, just compute using the formula we gave.
What IP Rating is Required For LED Kitchen Lights?
The IP rating is the protection of your lights against external elements. This is very important if you're adding lights in places that can be submerged in water or will be exposed in a wet environment (outdoors or bathroom). As for the kitchen, the IP rating of your lights depends on where you'll position them.
Kitchen lights above the sink or stove require an IP44 rating, so they'll be protected against moisture build-up. However, you'll only need an IP20-rated light in areas above a bench or a table. It's less likely that those lights will be exposed to any water.
What Kind of Lighting is Best For a Kitchen?
Obviously, the best light to have in the kitchen is natural kitchen wall lights (or ceiling lights) seeping through your windows with a few accent lights here and there to make the space look cosy. However, if there's no way for you to have abundant natural light, there's still a remedy to make your kitchen look stunning. You can do this by using various kitchen lights with various light bulbs.
What you need to do is layer your lights and use different colour temperatures to segment your kitchen. You can add LED downlights with a natural white coloured light as general lighting to give you a well-lit and open space. For your workspaces like the kitchen island, dining table and counters, use kitchen spotlights and under-cabinet lights with natural white light for task lighting. Then you could also throw in some plinth lights to make your kitchen look more modern and inviting.
As the kitchen is the place where most fires in the home begin, we would always recommend using fire-rated downlights in your kitchen ceiling as an added level of protection to the rooms above. Fire-rated downlights, installed correctly will reinforce the natural fire barrier of your ceiling allowing more time for safe evacuation in the unfortunate event of a fire breaking out.
How Much Light Do You Need In A Kitchen?
In order to determine how much light you need in a kitchen, there are a few things that you should take into consideration. A well-lit kitchen requires a strong lighting setup, more so than other rooms in your home. However, depending on the size and layout of your kitchen space, these factors will mean that considerations will be needed. Although, for a typical modern kitchen, you should consider around 70-80 lumens per square foot.
Due to you not having to worry about energy efficiency, you will only need to take into account the different types of light fixture. From natural light, ambient lighting installed lighting and general lighting overall. Taking these into account will ensure that your lighting space will serve a much more natural feel.
How to Fit LED Lights Under Kitchen Units?
In order to figure out how to fit LED lights under kitchen units, you will first need to review your lights before you cut and install the LED lights. Following this, and should you have LED strip lights, you will need to measure the length of your LED strip lights. Once you have the necessary length, you can then cut the LED lights and prepare the strip-to-power connection.
Following this, you will need to connect two lengths of LED strips with a strip-to-strip connector. Afterwards, you will need to combine the strips with strip-to-strip ‘no wire’ connectors which will finally allow you to test and install the LED strips to your kitchen cabinets - or wall cabinets if desired.
