Kitchen Lighting

For most of us, our kitchens are one of the most-used rooms in the house. Not only do we relax in our kitchens, but we perform a lot of tasks - work that requires good quality lighting. Kitchen lighting requires that we pay attention to glare, shadows in order to make this room both functional and enjoyable.

Kitchen Pointers...

• Avoid using a single light fixture in the center of the room as your task light or you will always be working in your own shadow.
  
  
• Track lighting is best when aimed at walls - using track lights to illuminate the middle of a room is asking for glare problems.
  
  
• Light colored surfaces make a bright, cheery kitchen easier to achieve - dark cabinets are hard to "brighten up".
  
  
• Shiny granite counters are fashionable, but are ALWAYS sources of glare and difficult to light.
  
  
• In a kitchen the tasks are horizontal and the task lighting should be optimized for that orientation (i.e. shining down onto the horizontal surface).