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Remodeling Lighting Kitchens

Lighting Help!! Kitchen / Dining Area Comments and Opinions Here!

last year

last modified: last year

Hey All,

I think I've finally settled on a kitchen design that should flow well and serve our needs. I'm currently working on cabinet interiors (drawers, pullouts, shelves, etc.) What I'm sort of struggling with is lighting the kitchen. I can't seem to get a straight answer. I've feel like I've learned about everything from BR and Par bulbs to amps, watts, lumens, foot-candles and I'm still not 100% on some final questions. I'm working on another diagram to show the light count I'm considering but I'm wondering if I'm crazy because of the quantity of lights. Also, I'm having difficulty finding the luminesce and candella specs for bulbs that show exact foot candles at which heights and their appropriate diameters. Can someone provide guidance?? Here's what I have so far; 14 general recessed cans, dimmable, 3 pendant lights, 1 dining light, and one above sink light and undercabinet led lights. Questions Below.

Am I crazy off with these numbers?
Is roughly 100fc too much?
I have the cabinets and the island (on non-seating side) lined with lights right above the edge, is this sufficient?
The remaining lights are in the walkway centers (south and east walls), does this work?
I have recessed lights at 48" from the fridge front and 36" in front of the pantry. Does this work?
Cans are placed roughly 4' from another aside from the above about the pantry and the fridge

Comments (4)

3onthetree
last year
If you can mark the actual light placement on the plan that would be more helpful than interpreting sentences.

100fc is definitely on the high side for an entire kitchen, at the low side for a surgery table. Even as a professional, I do not attempt to calculate footcandles of lights over an entire space. We hand lighting layouts to the electrical engineer, who then hands it to Cooper Lighting, who's computers spit out the photometrics. Light throws cross and overlap, so it is not a black and white equation. So do not get bogged down in fc numbers and exact cone angles.

For a kitchen of this size and level, start with the basics of your preference and budget for size of lumenaire, trim style, room cabinets and finishes (e.g. glossy, lots of nooks for shadows, etc), and aesthetic goals. For typical kitchen use, lighting cannot be engineered exactly perfect (neither aesthetically or functionally), instead there is lots of leeway in how lights are placed to make it function and look great.

And prior to lighting, it could be helpful to have your kitchen layout reviewed first, there are some really sharp people that might have some input.
Noor
Original Author
last year
@3onthetree thanks for the comment! It's taking me a bit but I've uploaded a new blueprint with the lighting I talked about. I'll attach to this comment as well. I appreciate your perspective. I'm aware 100fc may be on the high side but there's a good chance we end up with very dark (almost black) cabinetry so I want to ensure we have enough light especially for the hard to see spots. I'd rather have more light that I can dim than not enough light. Also as a DIYer I don't have access to a lighting guy that can do photometrics for me (hence the attempted calcs). Any help and additional input would be appreciated.
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Comments (27)
Great comments! Keep them coming. I like the idea of pull- outs in the pantry. Sounds like it may be better than having a walk in. You are all giving me something to think about. Yes, the built-in buffet was an add-in that we requested due to limited storage space. And I agree it looks like it was just kind of stuck in there. I will be having my cabinets custom made so I am hoping to make it look better when done. I could recess the refrigerator back into the wall, but will that impinge on the entry space from the garage? I am afraid to open up the the den/kitchen area too much as I will lose some important cabinet spaces. I currently do not have a walk in pantry in my own home but we love our shallow depth (recessed in) wall cabinet. I open it up and can find everything. Although, my bulky items do have to go in a small hall closet. If I were to open up the space between the two rooms, how would that open up more design options? All I see with that would be open air with lost cabinet spaces. I think I would rather have more cabinet space. As for our broken-up design. I like a Traditional home. I currently live in one. I like having private more quiet spaces. Believe it or not I recently had a young family couple call us who found out I will be putting this house on the market soon. They are looking for a less open home to buy due to the noise factor of their current open design. The LR and DR were designed for pocket doors to keep out my animals when I am not using them. These will be glass pocket doors to allow light and open up the space visually. I can't stand that my cats and dog now have access to both rooms and lay all over my DR table and LR furniture. I will be having all wood floors with Oriental rugs so I don't think I will have to worry about my carpets going bad. There will only be two of us living in this home. We will be living on the main floor. The majority of our square footage is actually on the first floor. The home looks much bigger than it is going to be. The left end of the home that you don't see (couldn't fit it on my scanner) will have a MBR suite with a large walk-in closet and an additional second master (exercise room) with a separate full bath. The second floor is separated. The bonus storage space (not to be finished) over the garage can only be accessed through the laundry room. We can not have a basement due to the high water table where we will be moving. There will be two bedrooms upstairs sharing a Hollywood bath and a sitting area above the library. This area has two staircases that access it. One from the library stairs and the central staircase.
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Comments (16)
I really like your home so far. Your hall and view down the house are wonderful and will do great things for it. I have something similar, with windows and single French door at the ends, but less "clean" and lined up. I want yours (!) and agree with recessing the bar slightly so there aren't always messy snags to the view you've created. Ours not only makes our home feel much larger than it is and connects us to the outside, but its simplicity makes our home seem more orderly even when it's not. That rear cabinetry could be much, much shallower and still provide excellent bar storage. Although if it doesn't fit your lifestyle, it just won't do, the three rooms carefully opened to each other could be fantastic, with an open staircase too. A neglected or unappealing dining room is definitely something to worry about, though. If you were to leave the dining room where it is, could you work on its function a bit, "break" the usual dining room box? How about putting a TV in there too for when a game's on? The table could have the kind of comfy armchairs people end up spending whole evenings in. Even a couch, or a very cushy wall-to-wall banquette, where the china cabinet is. What's out those side windows in the dining room? Do you have 8 (even 5?) feet to...perhaps a creeping fig or ivy-covered wall with a quiet water source dribbling down into a little deep green pond running along the wall, even a few ferns poking out of the corners, resident frogs, mossy brick if you wanted? If so, how about "breaking" the otherwise front-rear orientation a bit with windows across most of that wall to your secret garden? If so, would you need a window in the kitchen?
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I have to say that I am not crazy about the round table in the middle of the chairs. It feels like the arrangement is fighting the shape of the room and the rug. Don't know if this would work, but I would turn the rug to run the other way in the room - long side running parallel to the double windows on the end. Then place the chairs side by side on each of the long sides of the rug - on square, not angled. Tables and good sized lamps between each set of two chairs for drinks, etc. No table in the middle. By keeping the seating toward the left side of the room ( as we look at the last floor plan), it would allow bookshelves to go on the long wall to the right of the window at the top of the floor plan. One other thing, just for grins. If the four chairs are identical in size and design, just different in color, I might try switching out the cushions - light cushions on dark chair frames, and vice versa. I think it will create a sense of greater continuity between all the seating.
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Thanks everyone, we are going to make this phase of our lives work and if not then we will change something at that point. I do appreciate so much the words of encouragement. Flo, I will try moving the rug over and see what that does with where the blue chair can be. As you know it isn't easy to move a rug that size so any moving of it has to be this week while DH is here. DD, I agree with you that I might need some more of that color in the room and it is always in the back of my mind. The original plan was to have the doors of the TV console cabinets in that walnut, but they warped so badly that we went back to the ones they came with.
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3onthetree
last year
You certainly don't need another row of lights between the sink wall counter edge lights and the island lights. You also don't need a sink light and one at the sink counter edge. The outer aisles not sure of other adjacent rooms and where openings are. The island you don't want pendants banging your forehead and if you have a chandelier shown for the table you don't want pendants competing with that.

Maybe still a new clean thread for the cabinet layout would be beneficial, I'm thinking there will be some input on the microwave, the island seating, the cabinets flanking the windows, and some function placement like the wine rack.
Noor
Original Author
last year
last modified: last year
Interesting @3onthetree Agree with the sink light will remove it. Are you saying I should remove the bright orange middle row of lights above the island and dining area? From the pendant/ chandelier perspective. Are you thinking perhaps 4 pendants centered across the middle extending across the island and dining are or a single long chandelier doing the same? Also, some of the items you mentioned such as the wine rack have changed. Lastly, I do have a thread for the kitchen design, take a look here. Thanks for your input thus far! Also, currently all walls closed and single door entry in the south east corner - https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6262730/kitchen-dining-area-remodel-ideas-and-questions

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