Lighting is so important It can completely transform the mood and atmosphere of a room, whether it is a cool LED light or a warm light. You can even use coloured light bulbs to set a certain mood, though they are less useful for task lighting.
Great lighting adds depth and draws attention to the best features of a space, as well as drawing attention away from areas you want to be less noticeable.
Kitchen lighting
As one of the most functional rooms in the house, lighting is most important in the kitchen. It needs to perform different functions:
Task
These can include spotlights on the ceiling that usually come in sets of 3 or 5, and can be angled towards where you need the light the most. An increasingly popular form of lighting is to install LED strip lights under the wall cabinets, as these direct light onto the countertops.
Alternatively, if you have counter space you can simply use table lamps. The shade can be tilted to direct the light exactly where you need it and its metal shade will be easy to clean. If you have less space, you can place wall lights to shine down exactly where you need them the most.
Mood
The mood is usually set by a pendant light in the centre of the ceiling. These aren’t usually that bright, as it can be quite harsh, but they can provide a gentle ambient light. This style of light can be quite dramatic, and real show-stoppers.
Lights such as these often bring the 'wow-factor' to a space.
Feature and accent
These lights aren’t there to provide specific task or general lighting. Feature lights are there to look cool. Accent lights are usually invisible and used to draw attention to something else, for example, a recessed light to showcase a beautiful vase.
If you are looking for a quirky feature light, consider our bowler hat lights, that come as table lamps and pendant lights.
Things to consider
When planning your lighting, there are various things to consider:
The layout
Think about where you do the most food preparation – these areas are going to need task lighting. Do you have a dining area in the kitchen? If so, think about hanging a pendant light over the dining table. A dramatic light hanging low over the centre of the dining table can look fantastic.
The Eos lampshade provides beautiful, diffuse light and comes in light rose, white and grey.
The colours in your kitchen
If you have a dark, moody colour scheme, you will need more lighting than if you have a light, white gloss kitchen. If you have lights with pendant shades, think about using them to provide an accent colour, like a sunny yellow or a calming blue.
Changing the shades can be a quick and low-cost way of updating your colour scheme. The Jelly Glass pendant light comes in 4 colours: Grey, Jelly Blue, Jelly Red and Yellow.