Kitchen Lighting

It is amazing how many newly renovated kitchens fail to incorporate appropriate lighting.  Experienced Sales Associates at home improvement and kitchen design centers can attest to this from the number of customers they see looking for under cabinet lighting as a means of correcting the lighting in the kitchen – after the job is completed.

Kitchens have always been lit from the ceiling and many homeowners fail to look up when they are designing their kitchen remodels.  For decades kitchens were lit with a center of the room fixture.  The problem has always been shadows.  As cooks stand at the counter top to prepare a meal the light is behind them and the food in front of them is bathed in shadows.

Under cabinet lighting is a solution but it is better done if designed into the kitchen before the work is done.  At that point you have the option of directly wiring the fixtures into appropriately placed electrical wall boxes.  After the fact, adding these boxes for direct wired fixtures is extremely difficult, leading to the purchase of plug-in under cabinet fixtures.  These have the obvious disadvantages of exposed and unsightly cords and taking up an electrical outlet better reserved for other uses.

If you visit newly constructed homes in residential development areas you’ll see the universally preferred style of kitchen lighting is now recessed can lighting.  These are metal fixtures set into the ceiling so the actual light appears to come directly out of the ceiling.  Even with this style of lighting care must be taken so that the cans are placed directly above the counter area, resulting in light that will shine down between you as you stand by the counters and the cabinets themselves.      A few centimeters off either way will result in shadows or light falling on the tops of your cabinetry.

Fitting recessed can lighting into existing ceilings is a difficult and expensive job, but if you want a clean and contemporary look it is the only way to go.  However, there is an alternative, although it involves exposed fixtures:  track lighting.

While track lighting went out of style some time ago, new designs in track fixtures have led to a comeback.  Today you can get small, sleek looking fixtures in a wide variety of styles and finishes.  One of their major advantages is they can be installed by a moderately skilled homeowner.  In addition, professional installation will be far cheaper than installing recessed cans.

With track lighting there is no need to add electrical junction boxes or new wiring.  The electrical box which powers the centrally located light fixture in the existing kitchen becomes the starting point for your track design.  Tracks of different lengths can be extended from this central point in any direction.  Today the fittings that join sections of track allow you to change directions in enough ways that you can design a system to accommodate any style of kitchen layout.  Once upon a time the joiners were restricted to T-fittings and Right Angle fittings but now there are flexible fittings which allow you to change the direction of your track design in any angle you need.

For anyone renovating a kitchen on a budget, track lighting is a very cost effective alternative to recessed can lighting.   If your exposure to track lighting is limited to those old-fashioned, large white cans, you’re in for a pleasant surprise when you see how track fixtures have evolved.  You can search the Internet of visit a local home improvement center to get an idea of the wide variety of attractive, contemporary styled fixtures.