Kitchen lighting: worktop and atmosphere

A kitchen needs two kinds of light that rarely go together: bright and focused on the worktop, warm and calm in the rest. Anyone who tries to solve it with one ceiling light ends up chopping in their own shadow.

The problem with one ceiling light

If you stand at the worktop with the lamp behind you, you cast your own shadow on the worktop. Exactly where you are holding a knife.

The solution is light that comes from in front of or above the worktop, not from the middle of the room.

Task lighting above the worktop

Under the wall cabinets or aimed at the worktop. Allow 300 lumens per running metre of worktop. Colour temperature 3000 kelvin: fresh enough to judge colours, warm enough not to feel clinical.

If your kitchen shares a room with the dining table, stay at 2700 kelvin throughout and create the difference with the amount of light rather than the colour. See which light colour for which room.

General light

Allow 200 to 300 lumens per square metre for the room itself. A ceiling light or a few spots spread across the ceiling, so you can see well at the fridge and the pantry too.

Above the kitchen island

That is where a pendant lamp belongs, or two to three smaller ones. How many and how far apart is in how many lamps should you hang above a kitchen island.

Why dimmable counts here

Cooking during the day calls for full light. After dinner, when the kitchen is open to the living room, you no longer want that. A dimmer turns the same kitchen into two rooms.

Material: allow for grease

In a kitchen, grease from the air settles on everything that hangs. Smooth materials such as glass and lacquered metal are easy to clean; linen and paper much less so. How to go about it is in how to keep your lamp looking good.

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