The kitchen truly is the heart of the build a house project. With today’s open floor plans, where the family room living room, dining room and kitchen all blend into one great room, kitchen lighting is more important than ever.
Lighting Basics
The general principles of lighting design apply as much to kitchens as they do to any other room in the house. Generally speaking, every room needs three different kinds of lighting: general lighting, task lighting, and accent lighting.
The Kitchen Needs General Lighting
Think of general kitchen lighting, sometimes called ambient light, as the light that comes on when you flip a switch. You need general kitchen lighting so you can see what you’re doing as you walk through a room.
The light that flows into the kitchen through skylights and windows is ambient light. In the kitchen, even if you have lots of windows and skylights, you also need artificial light so you and your family can use the room after dark.
Overhead lights usually supply the general lighting in a room. In a kitchen, you can install recessed lighting for a modern look. Recessed lighting is flush with the level of your ceiling, so light fixtures don’t hang down into the room. Besides being well suited to complement modern design, recessed lighting is recommended for kitchens with low ceilings, or if your d
