The modern kitchen has a number of roles to play.  From food preparation to dining and entertaining, your kitchen is the hub for a range of activities which means you need to take an holistic approach to lighting when planning your kitchen renovation.

Kitchen lighting can adopt a variety of formats but the main types of lighting are task lighting, ambient lighting and accent or decorative lighting.

Clever kitchen design will draw upon a variety of lighting types to ensure that your kitchen can meet your daily needs, day and night.

If you are planning a kitchen renovation, be sure to adopt a bright approach to your planning with these top tips:

Consider Your Space

If you are planning a kitchen renovation, you need to consider your proposed kitchen space and how you want to work within in.  Will you be in the kitchen purely for preparing meals or do you want your kitchen design to be a focal point of the house – incorporating design and functionality?  Will the kitchen be used for entertaining as well as food preparation?  Consider all aspects of how you plan to use your kitchen and how it is placed within your home and craft a list of the major activities that will be done within the space.  This will enable you to be able to work out your needs in terms of task lighting, decorative lighting and ambient lighting.

Task Lighting Placement

Where will you be doing the most work in your kitchen? Most kitchens incorporate task lighting over cooking surfaces, the sink and work benches.

Think about the functionality of your kitchen and where you will need task based lighting to help with  kitchen activities such as cooking and meal preparation.

Know Your Style

Pendant lights come in a range of options these days and work well to create a focal point in your kitchen as well as providing light for work areas. It’s important to ensure, however, that your pendant fits with the style and scale of your room.   When shopping around for pendants, know the style of your home and also the dimensions of your room, particularly ceiling height so that you can be sure that your pendant is appropriately sized for your space.

Consider Your Surfaces

The surfaces in your kitchen will impact upon how light is thrown in the room so make sure you consider this when planning your kitchen lighting. Darker colours as an example absorb more light so you might need more lighting sources in darker kitchens.

Kitchen lighting can be complex and really does require a specialised understanding of kitchen design so we recommend you speak with a professional kitchen designer regarding your design and lighting if you are planning a kitchen renovation.

We’ve included some of our favourite lighting design ideas from Houzz to provide a little lighting inspiration for you.  Happy planning!