Brighten up your Space with a Variety of Kitchen Decorative Lights

by James Mahoney

When designing your dream kitchen, you will most definitely cover all the basics when it comes to picking out cabinets, flooring, and countertops. But, unless you're starting from the ground up, you might look over a key area in your kitchen. Decorative lights can enhance your space and even make it more functional when you're lacking in overhead and natural lighting.

Even if you're not tearing your kitchen down to the studs, you can still install kitchen decorative lights with relative ease.

Kitchen Decorative Lights: The Pendant Light

Pendant lighting can be particularly effective for providing task lighting in your kitchen. Decorative lights that hang in pass-throughs or over islands and kitchen peninsulas, pendant lights come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. These lights traditionally hang between 30 and 40 inches above the top of the peninsula or island.

If you're installing pendant lights in an area that once had an overhead light, you can use the original wiring. Depending on the type of pendant light you buy, they will either be attached to a single bar or hang independently from brackets and canopies.

Kitchen Decorative Lights: Under-cabinet Lighting

Another option for decorative kitchen lighting is under-cabinet lights. These lights can easily be installed by drilling a hole into the underside of a cabinet for the wires to run through and another hole into a cabinet near an outlet.

Though usually pretty straight-forward in their design, these kitchen decorative lights will also provide handy task lighting for preparing meals or doing prep work on the counters.

Kitchen Decorative Lights: Sconce Lighting

Sconces are another popular alternative for kitchen decorative lights. Generally installed on both sides of a window or a pass through, scones illuminate the area, making it more aesthetically appealing.

Sconces come in a wide range of shapes and colors and can even be battery powered. Specialty lighting stores will have a variety of sconce lighting options available for your kitchen project.

Kitchen Decorative Lights: Overhead Lighting

If you're able to completely revamp your overhead lighting situation, consider yourself lucky. Many older homes are extremely limited in kitchen decorative lights that are hardwired into the ceiling. When choosing overhead lighting, a popular choice is pot lighting or recessed lighting.

Pot lights are highly effective in brightening a space and can be installed to highlight certain architectural features of your kitchen. They are also favored in modern kitchens because of their clean, uncluttered look. Unlike with traditional lighting fixtures, recessed lighting is flush with the ceiling and goes virtually unnoticed until it is needed.

The type of bulb used in pot lights can also increase their efficiency. Halogen or compact fluorescent bulbs throw even more light into your kitchen space. Generally homeowners install dimmer switches to control the brightness of these kitchen decorative lights, and, while installing them can be a project for the seasoned do-it-yourselfer, more complicated recessed lighting projects should be left to a licensed electrician.

Find Local Remodelers Free Estimates - Kitchen, Bath, Additions, more.