Is Lighting The Key To A More Versatile Kitchen?

It might seem obvious to say it but the kitchen is a very different room to all the others in your own, demanding an approach to interior design all of its own. This is largely because the kitchen is the room you expect the most from.

Practicality

People naturally want their kitchens to be eminently practical. However, the modern kitchen isn’t some hive of activity hidden away from the rest of the world like the kitchens in restaurants and hotels. It’s a proper part of your home. It’s a place where people congregate to chat, enjoy a drink, have something to eat and so on. Modern kitchens are social hubs as well as functional spaces.

This means you have to design your kitchen so that it has all the right practical elements, but the overall look is really comfortable and appealing. The place has to be quite easy to clean and maintain, but it has to be welcoming too.

Comfort and style

People use all sorts of techniques to pull off the right effect – they inject colour into the room, find lovely bits of kitchen wall art, concentrate on how the worktops, floor tiles and cabinets work together for a really warm and inviting atmosphere.

Clever lighting

Another good tactic is to use lighting in an intelligent manner. Plenty of natural light is important in the kitchen because it helps to make the place feel bright and airy in the daytime. Brighter kitchens also tend to be more practical, so it’s sensible to have a bit of lighting directed onto worktops so that you aren’t always standing in your own light when you are chopping vegetables or carrying out any other forms of food preparation.

But when twilight arrives, it’s nice for the kitchen to be transformed into a cosy little space where you can hang out, rather than a bright and practical room for cooking. For this you need mood lighting – a dimmer and more atmospheric option that definitely fits in with the second purpose of the kitchen, which is to provide a nice space where people can relax and perhaps enjoy a drink at the end of the day.

Kitchens are great social spaces and act as a lovely alternative to the lounge or living room because they’re less beset by distractions like television. Some people use their kitchens like private little cafes where they can chew the fat at their own leisure!

Open plan arrangements

Of course, these days a lot of people make home improvements so that the living room, dining room and kitchen are all part of the same space. In this sort of open plan arrangement, a good balance of lighting is even more important because the kitchen is permanently part of your relaxing space and it mustn’t detract from the comfort and appeal of the lounge areas with its practical style and lighting.

Once you have your lighting sorted out in your mind you can start thinking about breakfast bars, kitchen seating, how your kitchen and dining areas fit together and so on, just to make sure you get full use of your downstairs areas.

Interior designer Elle Armstrong has seen intelligent lighting consultants do wonderful things with kitchen areas.