Kitchen Lighting Inspiration

Today we’re talking all things kitchen lighting. If you’ve seen our kitchen design you’ll know that lighting was on the list to be decided along with a trillion other things. Who knew there was so much choice?

Just before Christmas Lampcommerce asked if I’d like to delve through their vast range of lights and talk through the ideas I have for our new kitchen. So, let’s do this.

Break up the spotlights

Have you seen a kitchen makeover that didn’t feature spotlights in the past 5 years? Very few exist.

Sure, they’re sleek and modern and provide excellent light coverage, but I think there’s a time to say enough. In a room full of hard surfaces and square corners, more traditional lights work to break up the box shapes and add interest. Keep the spotlights if you want them, but add a main, central light to the mix.

I adore the look of industrial style enamel lights like these Huna lamps. We’ve not decided on lighting yet, but I’m inching towards something like this alongside spotlights.

Instead of breaking the spotlights up by using a hanging light, you can literally just split them in to zones as seen below. That way the kitchen isn’t under an office-esque flat light and it is bringing some visual interest rather than just practical light.

Pendant lights as an accent

If I could pick fault with my Parent’s swoon worthy kitchen, it’s that they missed a trick with their breakfast bar. They had a bespoke oak bar made that’s raised from the worktop of the kitchen island, much like the photo below apart from theirs is curved. How fabulous does this one look with accent lighting hanging above?

Three Axo Light AX20 Pendants as seen below would have polished it off the design nicely.

Our kitchen is far too long and narrow for any kind of breakfast bar or kitchen island so this idea will have to stay on my ‘one day’ list.

Fake some sunlight

Having plenty of natural light in a kitchen is any cook’s dream, for our kitchen though, the reality is that neighbouring houses block a lot of it. At the end of our kitchen, there’s a real dark spot that gets no natural light at all and so we started to look at fitting a roof window. I managed to find some that fit our budget, like this one from Screwfix, but there are hidden costs that send that spiralling. The window was £140 when I first found it, now it’s £199, add on £60 for the flashing, add on the cost of fitting… it looks like we’ll have to skip that idea.

I started to look in to ways to recreate the slithers of sunlight and found plenty of recessed lighting options that give diffused, ambient lighting. Paired with the right type of bulb, these could imitate natural light in a kitchen without breaking the bank.

Budget Kitchen Lighting

A friend of mine was recently looking to add some mood lighting to her kitchen but as her house is a new build, making changes to the fixed kitchen lighting wasn’t an option. Her solution was super low budget but made a huge impact. She bought a remote controlled rope light and fed it along the top of her kitchen cabinets.

The effect could also be used under the units, to highlight shelving or even set behind some coving like in the photo above. Single colour sets can be picked up for less than £10.

 

This post was made in collaboration with Lampcommerce