The kitchen is a place where a woman is a full-fledged mistress, because this is her territory, which means that only she sets the rules here. But in order for the stay in the kitchen to be pleasant and not reminiscent of hard labor, it is necessary to correctly design the room. Of course, the kitchen, beautiful dishes and curtains play a significant role in creating the interior, but the most important thing is the lighting in the kitchen.

Types of fixtures

Today, the lighting market is so diverse that you can easily choose the best option for yourself. The main thing is that it not only harmonizes with the design, but also qualitatively performs its functions. The variety of choices is easy to get lost, but there are several popular and common options:

• Mobile pendant chandelier.
• Spotlights.
• Clothespins.
• Sconce or overhead light.
• Suspended "paths".

Each of the types of these lamps is perfect for any size room. It is only necessary to choose the shape and color so that the lamp fits harmoniously into your design, gives maximum useful light and creates the desired mood.

Small kitchen lighting

It's great if you are lucky to become the mistress of a large spacious kitchen where you can let your imagination take a walk. But most often in a standard apartment, the kitchen area is not more than 6-9 m --- 2, which means that the space needs to be used as efficiently as possible. The game is played with color, forms of furniture, fabric and texture, lighting in the kitchen plays a significant role.

The best option for a small room is a glossy stretch ceiling with spotlights. Due to the reflection of light, the kitchen will be sufficiently lit, and the light will be soft. No less winning option can serve as directional lights. With their help, you can focus the light in the right places, thereby visually expanding the small kitchen and creating an unusual atmosphere.

With a small area of \u200b\u200bthe room, you can completely abandon the overhead lighting, giving preference to small lamps in the cabinets (if the doors are transparent) or high-quality light above the work surface. This looks especially advantageous if the kitchen is decorated in dark colors. This lighting of the kitchen ceiling will add romance and warmth to your dinners.

The working lighting of the kitchen is a very important and crucial moment. After all, bad light not only harms your eyes, but also increases the risk of injury or burns while cooking. So think carefully about which option is best for you.

Work zone

Recessed lights are one of the most common and simple options when lighting in the kitchen is done using the built-in headset lamps. Their convenience is that the light above the work surface is uniform and soft. Especially good are modern spotlights with halogen lamps.

Clothespins or flexible brackets are also quite practical and functional for the work area. The main plus is that such a lamp can easily be turned in the right direction and moved to another place. And the choice of such lamps is so great that there is always an option suitable for your kitchen.

Wall lamps and small sconces also create soft lighting, but it is worth considering that this method is completely unsuitable if you are used to storing cutting boards, pots and other kitchen utensils on the countertop. Pile of dishes does not combine with wall light.

Dinner Zone

Particular attention should be paid to the light above the dining table, because this is the key to a good mood for a meal. The lamp should be exactly above the table. The so-called mobile chandeliers are ideal, which can be raised higher or lower, thereby creating a special atmosphere. If the dining table is large, you can use several flexible lights. The main thing is to direct the light so that the countertop is fully and evenly lit.

If the table is located against the wall, the overhead sconce lamp is perfect. And here you can safely create and choose the most incredible shapes and colors. Just do not forget that the lamp should fit into the atmosphere naturally.

Warm or cold?

In conclusion, I would like to focus on the difference between warm and cold lamps. Lighting in the kitchen can and should be different. And the kitchen for the hostess should be not only practical, but also cozy. It is best to use neutral or cold light above the work area to make the food look natural. But in the dining area, warm lighting looks most advantageous. With it, you can create comfort and set the mood for dinner.

Well, in conclusion, it will be useful to give one simple advice: do not be afraid to create and create! Be sure to disassemble several options, see photos of interior designs, scoop up ideas from everywhere, because repair is a responsible business.

The organization of light in a small kitchen has its own important nuances. We will show you which lamps are best suited for lighting small-sized kitchens, and which lighting methods should be avoided. How to make a small kitchen truly comfortable with the right lighting - read in this article.

The most common lighting option that owners of a small kitchen choose is a single pendant lamp with a large ceiling or lampshade. A popular alternative to it is a small chandelier, most often with 2-3 horns or shades.
It would seem that such an option is quite capable of sufficiently illuminating a small space. But in reality, this method of lighting is very inconvenient. Especially if there is no local working light in the working area of \u200b\u200bthe kitchen. Often such a lamp illuminates only the center of the kitchen, and the most important areas remain in the shade.
Even in the smallest kitchen, you should definitely use several light sources. The main thing is to do it right.

The best option for lighting a small kitchen

The optimal combination of light sources:

1. in the working area, lighting under the wall cabinets (overhead and mortise spotlights or elongated lamps).

1. as a general lighting for a small kitchen, spotlights, ceiling spotlights or compact rotary spotlights, mounted on the so-called bus or rail system, are excellent. You can place such lighting along the line of kitchen cabinets or along the perimeter of the ceiling at some distance from the wall.

1. in the dining area you can use one pendant lamp with a beautiful ceiling or 2-3 small pendants that make up a beautiful composition. This solution is not only practical (the countertop will always be well lit), but also spectacular from a decorative point of view. A beautiful lamp above the dining table often becomes a visual accent in the design of the kitchen, a kind of cherry on the cake, which creates a mood and collects the entire interior of a small kitchen into a harmonious complete whole.

Important little things

Change the angle

For general lighting of a small kitchen, rotary spotlights and overhead lights are ideally suited, in which the angle of inclination and direction of light can easily be changed. Then you can easily control the backlight depending on the situation, lighting exactly the place where you need more light at the moment, and in your kitchen there will be no dark corners.

Sometimes in small kitchens you can see furniture fixtures on brackets that are attached to the top of the wall cabinets and “hang” over the countertop. This solution is functional, but unsuccessful for a small kitchen from an aesthetic point of view. Such luminaires visually clutter up an already tiny space, visually add weight to hinged cabinets and create a sense of disorder.

Height matters

A common problem in most small kitchens is the low ceiling. Mortise and overhead lamps, despite their convenience, have one significant minus: for their installation, it is necessary to mount a suspended ceiling made of drywall, which levels the surface and masks electrical wiring.
To get an even beautiful ceiling with overhead lamps evenly spaced on it, you will have to sacrifice a minimum of 4-5 centimeters in height. But such a decision is often justified. In this case, the kitchen lighting will turn out to be the most uniform, and the ceiling with overhead lights visually looks much lighter than with a conventional chandelier.
If you want to use recessed fixtures, the ceiling will have to be lowered by 11-15 centimeters.
A very good option (if you notice, designers often use it in their projects) is to make a plasterboard box only in the kitchen set area: so that it protrudes slightly in front of the edge of the wall cabinets. This design will not only allow the installation of spotlights along the kitchen front and provide good illumination of the working area, but also reliably hide unsightly communications, such as an exhaust duct.
In a small kitchen, a plasterboard box with a recess in the center, framing the room around the perimeter, is considered a good solution for low ceilings due to the imitation of the dome effect - due to which the ceiling visually seems higher. But in small rooms, this design will look quite unattractive and visually hide the space.

2 original lighting ideas for a small kitchen

In the arsenal of designers there are many unusual lighting design techniques that are very suitable for small kitchens.

1. Luminous strip between the kitchen and the ceiling
   The idea is simple, but very effective. The narrow gap between the upper part of the hinged cabinet and the ceiling can be hidden by a panel of frosted tempered, acrylic or plexiglass, and behind it place the backlight from the LED strip. This backlight does not just look beautiful. It is also very functional. It masks the corrugation of the hood, works as a source of additional background lighting, and in addition visually makes the ceiling higher.

1. Another option for design lighting of a small kitchen, which is easy to implement with your own hands, is the LED-lighting of the basement of the kitchen unit. Look: the kitchen seems to soar in the air. The boundaries of the floor seem to blur, and it seems that the area of \u200b\u200byour small kitchen is slightly larger than it actually is.

The illumination at the bottom of the floor cabinets perfectly suits the role of night stand-by light. An important nuance - for ease of cleaning, the LED strip should be protected with a special profile.
As an option, the LED backlight can be fixed directly under the countertop - it looks unusual and attractive.

How to choose a chandelier for a small kitchen

If the suspended ceiling does not fit into your plans and you still decide to confine yourself to one lamp in the center of the kitchen, when choosing a chandelier or lamp, pay attention to the following points.

1. In a small kitchen there is no place for sophisticated fixtures with an elaborate design. It is worth giving preference to concise, compact models of lighting devices. They look much better in a small kitchen: they do not attract too much attention, do not visually overload the space and easily fit into any interior in a modern style.
2. The chandelier should be compact, but not small. A small lamp with small details will only emphasize the already modest size of the kitchen. The most important thing is to maintain proportions.
3. Your choice is the chandelier without suspension, which are mounted directly to the ceiling. The closer the ceiling lights of the chandelier are adjacent to the ceiling surface, the less precious height hides. But if you decide to make a stretch ceiling, be careful when choosing a lamp and bulbs for it. Read more about this in this article.
4. A chandelier will help to smooth out the unpleasant effect of the low ceiling, the shades of which shine not down (such lighting visually hides the deficit height even more), but up. Such a lamp creates a visually raises the ceiling and creates an interesting play of shadows on its surface.
5. A flat ceiling lamp in the form of a "plate" or a rectangular box is poorly suited for the kitchen. The light from it will turn out too dim.

For a chandelier or pendant lamp with an open lampshade, use frosted bulbs. In a small kitchen, they will not blind their eyes and give a soft, comfortable, diffused light. But if the lampshade or shade is decorated with perforations, choose a transparent light bulb. Then the shadows on the ceiling and walls will become more spectacular.

Choose spots, spotlights and tire lights

An excellent alternative to a conventional chandelier or a single pendant lamp in a small kitchen is ceiling spotlights or spots. If you wish, you can find spots even in the classical style (for example, at Wunderlicht), and even in small kitchens in a modern or minimalist style, they will be very useful.

One option is to use single spotlights instead of recessed lights to illuminate along the kitchen front. But in this case, you can not do without a drywall box.
Another option - a more convenient and budget one - is to buy a spot with 2-5 (or more, if necessary) lamps on the bus. To install such a luminaire, only one electrical outlet is required in the center of the ceiling. But the lighting of the kitchen will be several times more even and better than that of a conventional luminaire. In addition, such lamps are very convenient to adjust, changing the direction of light as necessary. Having correctly selected the power of the lamp, it will be possible to do without local illumination of the dining area.
Convenient and inexpensive options for such spotlights are, for example, IKEA. You can find them at other popular manufacturers of lighting fixtures that are widely represented in online light stores - Globo (Austria), Arte Lamp, Odeon, Lightstar, IDLamp (Italy), MW-Light Maytoni (Germany), Citilux (Denmark), LuceSolara ( China).

Work area lighting

You can read more about options for local lighting of the working area in the kitchen in this article. As a rule, the size of the kitchen does not affect the choice of such a backlight, so you can safely follow the recommendations there.
In small kitchens, especially in Khrushchev, the sink is often in the farthest corner from the window. To wash the dishes was more convenient and enjoyable, take care of the lamp above the sink. Only it must have moisture protection.

Apr 7, 2015 Oksana