An often overlooked aspect of designing a kitchen is the lighting and it really is unfortunate as the kitchen is a work area and trying to work in dimly lit areas is never a good idea.
You can spend a lot of money on fancy lights if your not careful but you can get all the light you need without going over the top so long as you plan carefully.
You will want to start by getting your kitchen plan and looking at the various work areas and their location, you will clearly need to have every preparation surface well lit along with the other work areas such as sinks and cookers. Once you have identified where you need light you are all set to figure out how much lighting you need. Now there are two ways you can do this and the way you choose could also depend if your kitchen is also a dining room. If you do have a kitchen diner then you may opt to just aim light exactly where you need it so that you can keep the atmosphere more subdued around the table, alternatively you may decide, especially if the kitchen is just a kitchen, to fully light the whole room.
Once you have decided where you need light you can either opt for a fully gridded light system which will give you the same amount of illumination throughout the kitchen or alternatively you might choose to have spot lights pointing at various work surfaces with one main light over the dining table, if you have one.
For extra effect you can install under cabinet lighting in the wall cabinets, these light will shine onto the worktops and provide handy lighting to work under whilst looking fabulous during the night time with just these light on.
One useful piece of advice is, if you have a number of lights in your kitchen such as various spot lights and under cabinet lighting along with a central pendant light, make sure that you wire them all separately so that you can create numerous different lighting effects, if they are all on one circuit you will be limited to what effects you can achieve.
The type of light bulbs which you use can have a dramatic effect, these days you cannot buy incandescent light bulbs over a certain size in the UK and shortly you won't be able to buy them at all, the replacement is the CFL energy saving light bulb, many people don't like these but provided that you pick a high enough wattage and are patient for them to warm up they can be fine. What I like best about CFL bulbs is that they come in different spectrums of light, there are two main types, the cool, blue type and the warm, red type with the latter giving a warmer softer glow perhaps better suited to the dining table.
One thing which you should remember if you are having many different light types installed is that you will probably have to pay an electrician to wire these in for you. This work can range from an easy job to a difficult job solely based upon how easy it is to get at the light fitting and route cable through to the new locations. In many cases this work could involve lifting floorboards above, in some cases it could be necessary to take down the kitchen ceiling to access the necessary wiring.
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