Kitchen Lighting Improvements
By:
Allrecipes Staff
There are simple ways to improve kitchen lighting without a lot of hassle, dust, and expense. Here are a few of the easiest, least painful improvements.
These days, "workable" just doesn't cut it. Most kitchens now serve as dining room, office, and family room. Lights are on in the kitchen more than in any other room in the home. And since we cook, work, play, and pay bills there, we need a wide range of lighting to create a pleasant environment for all our activities and to prevent eyestrain and accidents.
In the course of totally remodeling a kitchen or building a new home, you might be able to afford the luxury of working with an architect or designer to get your lighting and wiring just right. But until then (which for some of us is never), there are simple ways to improve kitchen lighting without a lot of hassle, dust, and expense. Here are a few of the easiest, least painful improvements.
Add a Dimmer Switch for Flexibility
Improving kitchen lighting doesn't simply mean adding more lighting; it also means adding flexible lighting. Many designers divide kitchen lighting into three categories: general lighting (for overall illumination), task lighting (for detailed tasks) and accent lighting (for setting a mood or illuminating glass-front cabinets). A dimmer switch allows an existing light to serve all three functions. Install the highest wattage bulbs your fixtures are rated for, then use them full blast for chopping carrots, slightly dimmed for putting away groceries, and greatly dimmed for enjoying romantic dinners.
Replacing a standard switch with a dimmer takes less than an hour and costs as little as $8. Fluorescent and low-voltage lights need special, more expensive dimmer switches.
Simply Switching Bulbs Can Make a Huge Difference
Improving your kitchen lighting can be as simple as switching to different light bulbs, and there is a wide range to choose from. A standard reflector-type floodlight casts a beam of light (beam spread) of about 70 degrees, which is good for general lighting. A spotlight confines the beam spread to about 20 degrees--much better for task lighting. A narrow spotlight bulb (NSP) can narrow the beam spread to 12 degrees for bright, highly focused light. A standard A-type light bulb casts its light very broadly. So check your bulbs. A standard light bulb mistakenly placed in a recessed or track light fixture will provide only a fraction of the light that the recommended spot or reflector bulb would provide.
Bulb Height and Type
Bulb height and type greatly affect brightness as distance increases between bulb and surface, light levels fall off dramatically. For optimum lighting, keep fixtures close to the surface you're illuminating--and use the correct bulb.
A bulb's capacity to light a particular surface is dramatically affected by distance. If 100 percent of the light from a bulb reaches a surface 1 foot below it, only one-fourth of that light hits the surface if the bulb is raised to 2 feet above the surface, one-ninth at 3 feet and a mere one-sixteenth at 4 feet. You math whizzes get the equation, right? So when you need bright task lighting, keep the light as close to the work surface as you can, use a bulb that focuses more light and/or use a higher wattage bulb if the fixture is rated for it.
From Family Handyman magazine. Subscribe to this and other publications here.
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