How to Brighten a Dark Kitchen with Modern Lighting
THE LIGHTING GUIDE
How to Brighten a Dark Kitchen with Modern Lighting
At their very best, kitchens are bright and airy, setting the stage for where families gather and prepping the surfaces for where everyday cooking takes place. We perform many tasks—chopping, cooking, dining and more—in this functional, high-traffic room at home, making it decisive to illuminate properly.
Natural light is foundational.
Depending on their layout or access to natural light, certain kitchens can feel dark and cramped. As always, the solution to brightening a dark kitchen lies in architectural thinking around your approach to light. Whether you have minimal overhead lighting or want better visibility on key task surfaces, here are our guidelines on how to brighten a dark kitchen.
Brighten a Dark Kitchen With These Recommendations
Choosing an aesthetically pleasing light fixture isn’t the only thing you should focus on when figuring out how to brighten a dark kitchen. The perfect illumination comes from considering the following guidelines.
Amplify Your Base Layer of Light
In any room, natural light shapes your foundational layer of light—an all-encompassing glow that illuminates your space. Kitchens that lack a substantial layer of natural light must pay greater attention to amplifying this source of lighting throughout the space. Depending on your kitchen’s layout, you can create additional foundational light through implementing recessed fixtures along and above your key surfaces. Additionally, if you want to install fewer fixtures with greater light distribution, consider flush and semi-flush surface mounts to center your kitchen space with powerful ambient light.
Look Above the Kitchen Island
Today, many modern kitchen designs center around an expansive island surface for everyday prepping, cooking and washing. Depending on the size of your surface, a single pendant light or series of pendant lights are poised to provide greater illumination of your space. For smaller-sized kitchens that feel a bit more cramped, we recommend using glass fixtures to create a feeling of spaciousness, like the Bubbles, Cantina or Chelsea pendant lights.
Leverage streamlined, simplified lighting.
Illuminate Your Kitchen Surfaces with Under-Cabinet Lights
Overhead lighting isn’t the only thing to consider when learning how to brighten a dark kitchen. Kitchen countertops are the scene of tactical work, be it chopping, slicing or washing vegetables—and the ones that span the perimeter of your room typically sit below cabinets, casting a shadow on the surface.
In order to better illuminate this area, we recommend leveraging streamlined, simplified under cabinet lighting. A system of linear tubes set within geometric cylinder brackets, the SONNEMAN Purolinear 360 LED Bar is poised to brighten key spaces underneath cabinets by distributing light in every direction with infinite scale, illuminating your surfaces without creating unwanted glare.
If you take all the above points into consideration, you’ll be able to brighten a dark kitchen with modern lighting to create a relaxing, minimal, yet stunning space. If you’re looking for visual ideas, take a look at SONNEMAN's Kitchen Lighting Inspiration PAGE.