Kitchen ceiling lighting concepts that can flatter any house
Out of all of the lighting choices you may must make for a brand new kitchen, your kitchen ceiling lighting concepts would be the massive hitters for successfully illuminating your house. In spite of everything, ceiling lighting encompasses every thing from characteristic pendant lighting to the nuts-and-bolts, useful lighting that creates your kitchen’s ambient and job lighting.
There are totally different necessities for kitchen lighting concepts to different rooms in your house, and the burden of those sensible issues largely falls on getting your ceiling lighting proper.
‘Kitchens require a whole lot of unobstructed job lighting, comparable to spotlights or strip lights,’ says architect Ester Corti of Mitchell + Corti, ‘whereas characteristic pendants, though arguably extra ornamental and exquisite, are extra acceptable for islands or eating areas.’
This balancing act between the gorgeous and the sensible is the place a kitchen lighting scheme can really succeed or fail, so take into account these 12 kitchen ceiling lighting concepts throughout your challenge’s design section to be sure you straddle the divide completely.
Kitchen ceiling lighting concepts – how to decide on the fitting designs
Your kitchen’s overhead lighting additionally must be thought-about in relation to the general lighting combine within the house, together with any gentle sources from kitchen cabinetry and wall sconces.
Layering totally different lighting remedies is the important thing to having an adaptable house that can be utilized flexibly all through the day to fulfill the totally different calls for of a contemporary kitchen, from having a vibrant house to prep meals to posing as a serene backdrop for an open plan residing house. Your ceiling lighting actually will play totally different roles in your kitchen at totally different occasions of the day.
With that in thoughts, you must also begin out by contemplating your kitchen’s pure gentle, and its limitations, in order that ceiling lighting is taken into account for daytime kitchen use too, says New York-based inside designer Ahmad AbouZanat of Undertaking AZ. ‘To create an efficient lighting scheme, that you must perceive the pure gentle that comes into the house at totally different occasions of the day. This manner, you may assess if there’s a necessity for synthetic gentle in the course of the daytime too.’
1. Select the fitting lighting for vaulted kitchen ceilings
(Picture credit score: Joe Fletcher)
Kitchens with vaulted ceilings, whether or not they be pitched or simply double-height areas, deserve a lighting design that flatters and accentuates this characteristic. Conventional kitchen ceiling lighting concepts could have to be tailored to work for vaulted ceilings, and there could also be a higher reliance on low-level lighting for these areas.
This kitchen concept by LA-based structure studio Laney LA provides so perception into another method for lighting vaulted ceilings. ‘Within the HT Residence, we prevented putting recessed lighting within the vaulted ceiling,’ explains founding associate Anthony Laney. ‘Our intention was to create an uninterrupted second of calm. The hovering wooden ceiling stands in distinction to the exercise within the nice room beneath. A suspended gentle, from Allied Maker, is all that punctuates the house above the kitchen island.’
Uplighting a characteristic roof, particularly one with lofty proportions, is one other tactic to attempt that ensures its character could be appreciated throughout darker hours too. ‘On different initiatives, we are going to rigorously uplight the vaulted ceiling, permitting the sunshine to replicate again down on the areas beneath,’ says Anthony.
2. Use LED lighting to create a characteristic ceiling
(Picture credit score: James Merrell)
LED strip lighting is among the greatest lighting developments for kitchens proper now, providing a strategy to carry additional ranges to a lighting scheme with out cluttering your house with extraneous fittings.
The great thing about this type of lighting is in its versatility too. ‘LED lighting can be utilized as a type of task-lighting and can be used to create an ambient ambiance,’ says Sofia Bune Strandh, CEO of Sola Kitchens.
Its functions as a design characteristic are what makes it a very thrilling choice for kitchen ceilings too. ‘On this kitchen, using LED lighting efficiently emphasizes the excessive of the ceiling guaranteeing the olive tree stands out,’ says Sofia.
Whereas this ceiling lighting design may be very web site particular, there are many different methods to make use of this type of recessed kitchen lighting overhead to good impact. From easy strips creating illuminated graphic strains throughout the ceiling to tray ceilings with strip lighting built-in across the edges, every type provides the good thing about a fair, subtle glow all through your kitchen.
3. Rigorously specify directional and recessed downlights
(Picture credit score: French + Tye)
When specifying downlights for a kitchen, the satan is within the element. Not all downlights are created equal, and your alternative of favor won’t solely have an effect on how they give the impression of being in your kitchen, however doubtlessly influence the sunshine they provide the house.
Let’s start with plaster-over, trimless downlights, as used on this trendy kitchen concept created by NOTO Architects. These have turn into the go-to for a lot of householders in search of a sleeker end to their kitchen ceiling, the place conventional downlights may cause visible muddle when utilized in abundance. Nonetheless, the character of the plastered-over type signifies that the downlighter itself is recessed into the ceiling to a point.
This could restrict the unfold of the beam from downlights, making a narrower, extra centered gentle. For a fair ambient gentle throughout your room, this may occasionally imply extra lights are required nearer collectively, so making a call on the kind of downlighter you are utilizing is necessary at an early stage of your construct.
You must also take into account the place, or whether or not in any respect, you are incorporating directional downlights. Most kinds of directional downlighter are adjustable, that means that you’ve some flexibility in your design when utilizing these over fastened downlights, however are prone to come at an additional price. Contemplating the place directional gentle may go nicely, comparable to so as to add job lighting or for accent lighting on partitions or kitchen cupboards, for instance, will help you propose when and the place directional lights are acceptable.
4. Think about how glazed roof lights will have an effect on your lighting scheme
(Picture credit score: Luke Weller c/o Mitchell + Corti)
For contemporary kitchen extensions with skylights or roof lanterns, some thought must be given to the connection between these glazed parts and your kitchen ceiling lighting concepts.
‘Addressing lighting round skylights could be tough,’ says architect Ester Corti of Mitchell + Corti. ‘The alternatives all slim all the way down to the general aesthetic one is after and the precise use of the areas beneath/across the skylight.’
‘We all the time attempt to keep away from finding a skylight over a kitchen counter or island, choosing putting it between counter house, with the intention to permit for pendant lights over islands and both pin lights, plastered over trimless spotlights, hid LED strips with diffusers and/or wall lights within the kitchen space.’
Directional, ceiling-mounted lighting will help fill gaps in your scheme created by overhead glazing, however the place your kitchen design dictates a necessity for lighting in glazed parts, there are design options you may attempt. Some roof lantern kinds can incorporate casings for electrical wires, making it attainable to hold a pendant gentle from the middle of the lantern, whereas utilizing uncovered rafters alongside a glazed aspect return extension provides you the good thing about pure gentle overhead in the course of the day, with one thing to hold pendant lights from or repair spotlights to.
5. Dedicate ceiling lights to job areas
(Picture credit score: Douglas Friedman c/o Undertaking AZ)
Positioning downlights and spotlights in a kitchen lighting scheme ought to be knowledgeable by their use as job lighting.
‘Ornamental pendants are very talked-about as kitchen island lighting concepts as individuals wish to make a press release and have, but it surely’s necessary to watch out to not create shadows over the cooking and prep space,’ says Piero De Marchis, director of Element Lighting.
‘To ensure this doesn’t occur, we might usually advocate ornamental lighting ‘filled-in’ and supplemented with centered spotlights to remove any darkish spots. By choosing this mixture, you’ll then have a ‘cooking mode’ the place all of the lights are on after which a extra relaxed mode when you may flip off the spotlights and dim your ornamental lights.’
‘Attempt to cut back shadows on job areas,’ Piero additionally suggests, ‘so when leaning over the work-top the lights shouldn’t be instantly behind you.’
This stage of lighting utility requires you to replicate on how a kitchen house might be used – a problem for a brand new house that exists solely as an idea – which could require an in depth dialog along with your kitchen designer or a leap of creativeness in your half.
6. Choose the fitting pendant lighting
(Picture credit score: Marie Flanigan)
Kitchen pendant lighting concepts are available all styles and sizes, so the place do you start in beginning to slim down your selections?
‘The form and variety of pendant lights is all the time relative to the size of the house we’re working in and to the performance,’ says inside designer Ahmad AbouZanat, ‘that means the design of the kitchen dictates what sort of fixture to make use of.’
‘Clear fixtures, comparable to glass globes or wired drums are nice for small kitchen lighting concepts, whereas linear and minimalist designs are good for a modern look if the sunshine has an fascinating backdrop,’ he continues. ‘Heavier or bigger fixtures (comparable to drums) could be the fitting alternative if the house is bigger, or there’s a possibility to see them from totally different perspective – in different phrases, they’re there however not essentially obstructing a view of or from the house.’
7. Use ceiling lighting to zone your kitchen
(Picture credit score: James Merrell)
Ceiling lights have an necessary position to play in open plan kitchen concepts, serving to to demarcate totally different areas of your house visually and create a way of order and circulate for the attention from the highest of the room down.
Pendant lighting is a very great tool for this as it could actually floor furnishings comparable to eating tables and kitchen islands, and makes a brand new heart for a zoned space in a bigger open-plan house.
Downlights can be used on circuits which might be independently operated. At evening significantly, this lets you zone areas by the primary ambient lighting of your kitchen, drawing in a big open plan room and making it really feel extra intimate and comfortable by solely partially illuminating it.
8. Do that lighting concept for ceilings with uncovered rafters
(Picture credit score: James Merrell)
As a well-liked inside design pattern, uncovered rafters see loads of motion in modern kitchens, including an fascinating architectural aspect to what can in any other case be a bland a part of your room’s design.
As this type of ceiling is normally created utilizing a property’s structural parts, fairly than being added in as an ornamental afterthought, the lighting format is fairly straightforward to attain, and these rafters can act as a grid to make sure you have , even unfold of lights throughout the entire of your kitchen. Nonetheless, very like utilizing recessed downlights, the rafters themselves can get in the way in which of sunshine from flush downlights, doubtlessly inflicting shadowy areas throughout your scheme.
The most well-liked answer to this subject is to make use of surface-mounted spotlights with rafters. These semi-flush lights act like protruding downlights, guaranteeing your lighting clears the rafters and provides higher illumination to your kitchen.
9. Discover ceiling-mounted lighting designs
(Picture credit score: Designspace London)
Flush, semi-flush and different ceiling-mounted fixtures should not be an afterthought on your kitchen ceiling lighting concepts. They will supply a design-forward type that additionally skirts among the drawbacks of pendant lighting in a kitchen, particularly over a kitchen island the place dropped fixtures can interrupt sightlines or you might have a number of pendant lights combating for consideration in an open-plan house.
The sculptural flush lighting set up was commissioned by the home-owner as a part of a kitchen renovation challenge undertaken by Designspace London, and is complemented within the wider house by a linear pendant used an minimalist eating room lighting concept.
10. Select monitor lights for an adaptable kitchen lighting
(Picture credit score: James Merrell)
The advantages of monitor lights are sometimes neglected for modern kitchens. ‘They will typically be adjusted and rotated, so give quantity of flexibility,’ says architect Ester Corti, ‘however they’re visually extra dominant due to this fact don’t all the time match the general aesthetic.’
After all, there are trendy monitor gentle kinds that will be at house in any luxurious kitchen, and in a design comparable to this modern handleless kitchen in a London property, the rig-like lighting set-up turns into a focal point for the room.
11. Set up your ceiling lighting on circuits
(Picture credit score: deVOL)
Choosing the proper kitchen ceiling lighting concepts alone would not assure a lighting scheme that capabilities nicely. How they’re put in may even have an effect on how your lighting could be managed, enjoying into the vary of moods you are in a position to create within the room.
‘Think about how circuits are utilized in your design,’ says Element Lighting’s Piero De Marchis. ‘Luxurious, perimeter lighting ought to be separated from the middle — have the island or a eating desk by itself circuit to alter the temper.’
In a bigger kitchen, you might have considered trying (and even want) extra circuits for a higher variety of downlights used by the house, serving to to manage the lighting in zones. Nonetheless, the important thing to getting circuits proper on the subject of your kitchen lighting is in balancing this ratio of circuits to lights.
A 3 or 4 toggle change is the perfect amount, providing you appropriate management over your lighting with out it turning into troublesome to familiarize yourself with which change activates which gentle.
12. Use dimmers for ceiling lighting the place acceptable
(Picture credit score: Future)
‘Dimmers aren’t essentially as widespread in kitchens as residing areas,’ says Ahmad AbouZanat of Undertaking AZ, ‘but it surely could be one thing you wish to take into account on your ambient lighting if the kitchen is open-plan.’
Including a dimmer will help your kitchen ceiling lighting concepts transition between job and ambient lighting as required, one thing that is significantly helpful for later evenings when the kitchen is probably not in use other than as a backdrop for the remainder of your house.
You will must verify your LED lighting is suitable with the dimmer you’re utilizing. Not all LED lighting works with a dimmer and in some circumstances utilizing a dimmer with a wrongly-specified gentle may even injury your circuits. Make sure you select a dimmer that has a wattage excessive sufficient to deal with the quantity and wattage of your bulbs.
What gentle shade temperature is greatest for kitchen ceiling lighting?
Putting a stability between sensible and handsome lighting causes one dilemma on the subject of kitchen ceiling lighting — selecting the best gentle shade temperature. Measured in Kelvins (Okay), cool gentle is best for job lighting, heat gentle is extra enjoyable to the attention, whereas additionally selling higher sleep.
‘Consider utilizing 3000K in a utility space the place a whiter gentle will make the house really feel brisker,’ suggests lighting designer Estefania Marquez of John Cullen Lighting. ‘Nonetheless, for many rooms inside the house, 2700K is our most popular shade temperature.’
Combining totally different gentle temperatures throughout an area can look jarring so is greatest prevented, however utilizing a sensible LED automated lighting system could give you the choice to shift shade all through the day to swimsuit the duty at hand, managed by a distant or an app.
How vibrant ought to kitchen ceiling lighting be?
Brightness is one other issue that must be thought-about on your kitchen ceiling lighting – normally, kitchens ought to be double the brightness of a front room.
‘Kitchen lighting must be sufficient for task-related issues comparable to cooking and reducing,’ says Element Lighting’s Piero di Marchis. ‘About 800 lumens is an effective place to begin and if it’s dimmable then that’s a bonus.’
