毎日の家の革新はひっくり返る

Today’s article on our kitchen remodeling, one of several different home renovation projects we have undertaken,?concerns the various lighting we chose for our kitchen: recessed ceiling (pot) lights, under-mount counter lighting and?pendant lighting.

Now, our kitchen originally had a single light in the middle of the ceiling. Since we live in a bungalow we were encouraged by both Jim, our kitchen designer and Bruce, our primary contractor, to go for recessed ceiling lights.

With use of a dimmer switch we could control the amount of light as a mere touch of our finger tips.?This also allowed us to conserve the energy consumed through this lighting by only having the full brightness when?needed.?

As well, moving to a set of six recessed lights spread throughout the kitchen ceiling would provide ample lighting for?the general kitchen area. If need be, we could even adjust each light and have it slightly angled to provide it’s disbursed light in a slightly different direction. These lights were purchased at the local big box building supply store.

Next, Jim suggested that we consider pendant lights above the island. This would provide more direct lighting when preparing the meal (which would usually be done on the island).?

However,?in?yesterday’s Part 7 article on our kitchen remodeling experiences, the point was made that we wanted the?visual focal point of the kitchen to be the?quarts counter tip and the solid wood flooring. So, we needed to be cautious that the pendant lights?were not visually obtrusive yet provided the direct lighting needed during food preparation activities.

The pendant lights we chose seemed initially too small when first installed. However, since we had never previously had pendant lighting it was a matter of us understanding their function and use. We are now very comfortable with them and are please with out selection. They can also be raised or lowered by about 18 inches quite easily (although you need to do this carefully not to scratch the coating of the light shaft). They were purchased through Jim from one of his many lighting catalogs.

Next, the under mount accent lighting above the counter tops. In our previous house we had the ‘old fashioned’ type of fluorescent tubes which if not installed correctly can have a constant and annoying humming sound when in use.

We had seen in some design stores an alternative called ‘puck’ lighting which is the same shape and similar size of, well, a hockey puck. The disadvantage with these ‘puck’ lights is their energy consumption.

Jim had Bennett, our kitchen installer extraordinaire, instal compact fluorescent lights for the under-mount lighting. Not only were all three controlled by one on / off switch on the wall but each also had its own on / off switch. Sometimes they provide too much lighting so we can turn the one above the counter top beside the refridgerator?off while the others can remain on.

The electrician who helped Bruce, our primary contractor, with the rewiring in the house suggested that we might want to consider placing lighting on top of the cabinets which did not go all the way up to the ceiling similar to the under-mount lights. These lights, he said give off a very nice indirect lighting effect. We still might do this. But for now, we felt we had enough to do with the overall renovation so we passed on this suggestion.

We hope you have enjoyed our review of the different lighting in our remodeled kitchen.?

To continue with our 12 part series on our kitchen remodeling experiences, simply select this link to Part 9.