Kitchens are one of the most important areas in your home. There is a lot of work being done here like preparing meals, entertaining guests, doing homework, making lists and more. As much as you need good knives, pots and pans, and other utensils, you also need great kitchen lights. Your space needs to be bright and the color of your kitchen lights should suit your mood. Let’s see which color is the best?
About Kitchen Light Colors
During the daytime, you can get much of natural light if you have a big kitchen window. But the evenings are different. You will need good lighting if you want to accomplish your kitchen tasks well. Your space needs to be bright and the color of your kitchen lights should suit your mood.
Three Categories of Kitchen Lighting
There are three main types of lighting that you can use in your kitchen. These are ambient or general lighting which gives the room its basic light, task lighting which focuses on a specific work area and accent lighting which creates a focal point in the room.
Ambient Lighting
Ambient lighting is best for cooking. The light is adequately distributed to your kitchen space to give it great illumination. The layer of light throughout the room is consistent so that there is no problem when working under it.
One good way to fill your kitchen space with a sufficient amount of light is by putting recessed lighting in your kitchen. Aside from recessed lighting, you can also use pendant lights, chandeliers, and flush mounts.
Task Lighting
Task lighting is used if you need light for a specific activity. It will provide good light in the particular spot where most of your work is done. Task lighting should be situated in the area above your workspace especially when you are using knives.
Task lighting can also be provided by under-cabinet lighting. This is ideal if you have activities using your countertop. With this type of lighting, no shadows will be cast. It also provides a nice architectural feature that highlights the contour and shape of your kitchen.
You can properly light your work areas and cabinets with task lighting. This can help you prepare your meals safely, read recipes, and locate ingredients on your shelf easily. Task lights are usually a direct light beam.
Accent Lighting
If you want to focus on something in the room, then accent lights are ideal to use. Visual interest is provided by these lights. If you want to show off areas of your kitchen, using accent lights can draw people’s attention to that area. Accent lighting above your cabinet area will make the room look inviting and even your ceiling will look taller.
Color Temperature Options for Your Kitchen
If you are selecting light bulbs for your kitchen, do not just check on the lumens. What is more important is the kelvin rating of the light bulb. This tells you the color temperature of your bulb. A high kelvin rating gives you a cool light while a lower rating gives you warm light.
If you are going to choose lights for your kitchen which is a heavy workplace, then you should not choose lights that are too low colored. Neither should you choose one that is extremely bright colored. Choose cooler bulbs because with them you can easily see things. This is the type of light that you can rely on for your kitchen.
Here are the best color temperature options for your kitchen:
Daylight - 5000K
This is a white, almost bluish light. This type of light can be used as a task lighting instead of using them everywhere in your kitchen. It is a great task lighting in places where you do your food preparation or read recipes. Under this type of bulbs, reading has actually been proven to be easier.
These LED bulbs are ideal to use in your work areas in the kitchen. When you are cooking or the children are doing their homework, it is great to have a clean daylight type of lighting.
Cool White - 4100K
A good light workhorse for your kitchen is a cool white light. Your space will have a good visibility throughout. The light has a bright white or a cool tone kind of color. It is cool and bright which enables you to work beneath it.
Setting the Mood in the Kitchen
The mood of people can be affected by color temperature. If you have low color temperature lights, your body can release the melatonin hormone. This causes you to relax and become sleepy. Similarly, if your lights have a high color temperature, the serotonin hormone is released by your body which boosts up your energy level.
While the best lighting for your kitchen are lights with high color temperature, you can also use lights with low color temperature to set its mood. It is good to layer decorative bulbs with warm amber glow in a space that already has cool whites and daylights. But a better idea is to install a dimmer switch so that you can have more control over the brightness of your kitchen lights.
Or, you can choose to use color-changing LEDs so that you can control the temperature. Dimming the lights will give you warmer lights all the way to up 2200K. If you have a lamp that emits a soothing yellow light you simply cannot see by, it can still have a place in your kitchen. If you are not using your kitchen as you would normally use it, then it is nice to have that light.
However, when you start cooking, you should turn it off and turn the lights above on. Turning the cooler lights on can help you prepare your meals properly without any incident.
Conclusion
You can consider the kitchen a workhorse in your home. Here activities like list-making, recipe reading, and actual meal-preparation or cooking are done. If you are making a lighting plan for your kitchen, it is important to first assess the activates you will be doing in the space, from cooking to entertaining, and other activities. Considering all the factors, the best color temperature bulbs for your kitchen are 4100K LED bulbs.
This is good for your kitchen’s ambient lighting. The emitted color makes you feel both relaxed and energetic. If you are placing cool white lights in your kitchen, you will have good visibility throughout. You might want to mix in a few 5000K LED bulbs for kitchen task lighting. If you want to use a particular space in your kitchen to do knife work, then it is best to install under-cabinet lighting to focus on that particular area.
