Kitchen Cabinet Lighting

Kitchen cabinet lighting can be the answer to shedding some light on you cooking space

Kitchen cabinet lighting has become a mainstay in today’s kitchen. You can choose from a variety of styles and from an array of innovative designs that will make your cooking area attractive as well as functional.

The combination of form and function is an integral part of today’s kitchen design ideas and among those ideas is kitchen cabinet lighting. After all, what is the point of having attractive kitchen decorating ideas put into action if you can’t see them?

A well-lit cooking area can make the difference between great dinners and questionable cuisine. However, many of today’s kitchen decorating ideas involves dark-colored counter tops and cabinets stained in deep, rich colors. While these features are quite attractive, they can leave your cooking are a little dark.

The common color for rooms in which cooking takes place used to be white, or off-white. The standard light-colored rooms required relatively little lighting due to the reflective quality of the white appliances and light-colored cabinets. Even the floors were white. There was little use for kitchen cabinet lighting because one light usually produced enough illumination.

During the 1970’s white was replaced with browns, oranges and mustard-yellow colors that gave the room a little character but did little for illuminating the cooking space. This darker lighting scheme paved the way to kitchen cabinet lighting in a round-about way. You can’t cook well if you can’t see well.

The necessity for proper lighting in the cooking space did not immediately lead to kitchen cabinet lighting. Many homeowners in the 1970’s chose to add fluorescent lights to their kitchens and baths to shed some more light into these rooms. Kitchen cabinet lighting became mainstreamed a little later in kitchen decorating ideas.

Kitchen Cabinet Lighting Tips

  1. Mount flourescent strips close to the front edge of your kitchen cabinets. This will help avoid glare. This type of lighting will will prove extremely helpful as you prepare food.

  2. Place additional strips of mini-incandescent lights in soffits and other concealed places. This will highlight your cabinets and in addition it will add a warm atmosphere to your whole kitchen.

  3. Position low-voltage minilights over, inside and under your cabinets that have glass panes. This creates a very dramatic look.


Please Note:

Many people have difficulty staying in rooms that have fluorescent lights because this type of illumination “moves” or vibrates on the onlookers’ eyes. Most people are not bothered by this but others wind up with awful headaches when exposed to this type of lighting for an extended period of time.

It is unknown whether or not the person who invented kitchen cabinet lighting was bothered by fluorescents or not but I would wager to guess that this inventor was not a big fan. Kitchen cabinet lighting serves basically the same function as fluorescent lights. It simply makes the area brighter and lighter without irritating sensitive eyes.

Back to Articles About Kitchen Decorating Ideas

Home Decorating Tips