When remodeling a kitchen, it’s easy to get carried away with choosing cabinets, countertops, and appliances. But there is another element that is just as important: lighting.
“The importance of lighting in a kitchen is twofold,” said Rush Jenkins, its managing director WRJ Design in Jackson, Wyo. “One is to have enough light on the surfaces to see what you’re doing. The other is decorative lighting, which can enhance a home in the same way that great jewelry enhances a beautiful outfit.”
And now that food preparation areas double as gathering spaces, using lighting to set the mood is more important than ever, he said. Jen Feldmaninterior designer based in Los Angeles.
“The kitchen is not just a place where you go to cook,” Ms. Feldman said. “It’s habitable space.”
She and other designers shared tips on how to light up your kitchen.
Create layers of light
Professional architects and designers rarely use a single fixture to brighten up a kitchen. Instead, they focus on creating layers of light with different types of fixtures used in different ways.
“I love to cook and bake, and when I’m working I need it bright,” said Blair Moore, its founder Moore House Designin Warren, RI But if he has friends over for cocktails and canapés, he wants something else.
“When I’m having fun, I want to make sure it’s not a light on at all,” she said. “Then we use ambient or accent lighting.”
The best way to get it? Use of sconces or similar fixtures.
Ms. Moore added, “I always like to have three levels of lighting”: general lighting, task lighting, and ambient or accent lighting. This makes it easy to light the room in different ways.
Start with the most basic lighting
When creating a lighting design, you should start by choosing fixtures for general lighting: surface-mounted ceiling lights, linear track systems, or recessed box-type lights.
Regardless of the type of accessory you choose, placement is key.
“People want these spaces to be well-lit, but we really try to think about what we’re lighting,” said Matt Berman, founding principal of the New York-based architecture firm. Workshop/ADP. This means focusing on counters, circulation routes and key functional areas like the sink and stove.
His company typically lines ceiling lights along the cabinets, Mr. Berman said, rather than installing a grid of recessed fixtures that flood the room with light.
All the designers interviewed for this story like ceiling lights are so subtle they almost disappear. When using recessed fixtures, they prefer smaller-aperture ceiling fixtures with a two- or three-inch opening and trimless designs that are flush to the ceiling with a layer of drywall. Mr. Berman also likes recessed track systems that hold multiple lights in a single cut in the ceiling.
Add more light above work surfaces
Even with most of the room lit, it’s helpful to bring focused task lighting to the counters where you’ll be cutting vegetables, carving meat, and grating cheese. If you don’t have upper cabinets, one way to do this is to install simple sconces or pendant lights that project light up to the counters.
Ms. Feldman added brass sconces above her own kitchen counters. Ms. Moore has used modular scissor sconces that can be extended and rotated to provide light where needed.
If you have upper cabinets, a better approach is usually to add LED strips under the counter. Concealed with string or recessed into cabinets, they can illuminate the entire length of a counter while remaining hidden from view.
“It’s very helpful to have under-cabinet lighting,” he said Megan Eisenbergan interior designer in Los Angeles who chose a sleek sconce to illuminate the counters in her own kitchen, but now wishes she had added under-cabinet lighting as well.
“We didn’t and I lived to regret it,” he said. “Because it’s really nice to have under-cabinet lighting when you’re cleaning and the upper cabinets cast a shadow.”
If you’re worried that some interior cabinets will be too dark, you can also add LED strips inside the cabinets that will automatically light up when the doors and drawers are opened.
Make a statement with decorative lighting
Don’t overlook the opportunity to make a statement in the kitchen with decorative items, just as you would in a dining room. Often, this is a chandelier or a series of pendant lights above an island.
Mr. Jenkins, of WRJ Design, used brass and glass chandeliers from Lindsey Adelman, leather and frosted glass pendants from Allied Maker and smoked blown glass linear lamps from Gabriel Scott to dramatic effect.
“You have this great interior,” he said, “and then when you bring in beautiful lighting, it hits it and creates a focal point.”
But it’s important to look at what else is around this program, he added. If the display fixture interrupts sight lines to a window with a view, Mr. Jenkins will look for a fixture with clear glass diffusers. Otherwise, he can choose an accessory with opaque or translucent shades that match other materials used in the cabinets and kitchen furniture.
It’s also wise to consider nearby fixtures if the kitchen is open to other living areas, Ms. Eisenberg said. When the kitchen island is next to a dining table, hang a single piece that makes a statement over just one of those spaces.
“I always pick and choose where I want people to focus,” he said. “I don’t want one pendant hanging over the dining room and then another in the kitchen.”
Design the controls
To take full advantage of so many levels of lighting, you need to be able to control them. At a minimum, different types of lighting — general, task, and decorative — should be separated into separate switches. Using a dimmer is even better.
The next step would be a home automation system with smart dimmers, which allow you to set scenes for different times of day and uses. “That way you can set an evening scene where the lights are lower and a morning scene where the lights are nice and bright,” Mr. Berman said.
It is also important to know the color temperature of the various lights you plan to use. While LEDs with a color temperature of 2,700 Kelvin are similar to incandescent light bulbs, Mr. Berman noted, in the kitchen “we’ll push it to 3,000 Kelvin, which is a little brighter and whiter.”
This color temperature is great when making breakfast, but may not be ideal if you want warmer, low light for a cocktail hour. One solution is to look for fixtures that use dim-to-warm LEDs, Mr. Berman said, gradually transitioning to warmer color temperatures as you dim them.
Whether you use dim to warm lights or not, all the lights in your kitchen should have a similar color temperature.
“There’s nothing more annoying than having a nice warm light” in one area, Mr. Jenkins said, “and then a bright white, fluorescent-like light next to it.”
Embrace the plugin options
While most kitchen lighting is built-in, it’s possible to bring some extra light into dark corners, and some extra style, with plug-in bulbs. Ms. Eisenberg, Ms. Feldman and Ms. Moore have used table lamps in kitchens.
“I always like a table lamp on a counter,” Ms. Moore said. Especially now that kitchens serve as living spaces, she added, “I like that it’s like a piece of furniture.”
Ms. Feldman likes the look so much that she designed a kitchen with a switch outlet above a wall shelf so she can plug in a table lamp and connect it to the same wall dimmer as the sconces.
“Lamps are a really fun and beautiful way to play with dressing the space,” Ms. Feldman said.
In the end, lighting a kitchen “is really the sum of all the parts,” he added. “Which is no different than how you cook in a multi-ingredient kitchen.”
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