Kitchen lighting

NotAGolf

NotAGolf

NotAGolf

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I'm getting my kitchen redone and need to decide on the layout of the lighting. The room is 3.5x4.5m. About a third of the room will be a dining area.

I'm getting some LED strip lighting to go under the counter tops and am planning to have LED spotlights on the ceiling. Maybe 16 or 20 in total. What I'm struggling with is how to divide up the circuits as I want more flexibility than having all or nothing. The obvious split would be separate switches for the kitchen and dining area, but I think it'll look odd having one half in darkness and the other lit up. I think at least those over the dining area should be dimmable too.

Anyone got any advice? For those that have a similar setup, what do you like about your setup and what would you change?
 
My kitchen diner is L shaped with the kitchen bit being about 5m x 4m and dining bit being about 3m x 4m.

In total there's 21 downlights each with a 5w LED. None are dimmable as I loate dimmers but as the downlights are cool white we've got a couple of floor standing lamps. When we're eating we normally have the downlights off, uplights on and under cupboard lights on.

In terms of circuits we've got all the downlights on the same circuit and there's a circuit for the LED strip under the cupboards and another for the pencil LEDs in the kickboard. There's a switch for each circuit at both ends of the room.

We thought it'd look very odd having half the room in darkness and the other lit, hence going for a single circuit for all the downlights. Having lived with this setup for about 4 months I'm still very happy with that decision. I don't think we'd change anything.
 
16-20 down-lights in that size of area maybe overkill, our new kitchen is 14.3sqm (2.65x5.4) and we have just 8 dimmeable LEDs putting out 4.5k lumens when at full power and it's VERY bright.

In regards to zones/circuits all ceiling lights are on a single circuit and controlled via a touch dimmer. We had thought about splitting the two ends of the kitchen but that just looked odd.

For under cabinet lighting we went for RGBW strips, one side forming one zone and a second on the other. Both are controlled by a single touch panel and zones can be controlled either independently or linked as one. In addition to providing mood lighting they also offer enough light for food prep and general kitchen use.

You can see both controllers to the left of the door in the first pic:-

Kitchen07.jpg


Kitchen08.jpg


Do you have a floor plan including kitchen layout and table placement/shape? I'd be inclined to light the kitchen with down-lights and then have lower hanging lights over the table area.
 
GSXRMovistar - Looks stunning! Do you have recommendations for RGBW tape / controllers?

models / specs to look out for / suppliers / etc
 
Thanks. Now I’d probably take another look at the Philips Hue stuff but at the time they didn’t offer an RGBW strip, just RGB (I wanted to include white for food prep).

I got my gear from a company called Highline Lighting, the strips are made up of quad colour SMD5050 LEDs and are fully waterproof. Each of the two lighting zones are hooked up to small LED controller units each being powered by a 24V driver which in turn takes a 240v mains feed.

The wall touch panel isn’t physically attached to the controller units, it controls them over radio and runs off a standard 240v feed. I also have another little gizmo in the mix which is a wifi adaptor, this is powered off one of the the 24V drivers and allows our phones/ipads to talk to it and then in turn sent the corresponding radio signals to the lighting controllers. This allows us to turn lighting on if outside of the house or hook it into systems such as IFTTT (if this, then that).
 
Based on the above I'd probably go 4-6 down-lights spread equally in the square surrounded by the base units, ideally 4 if the beam angle and power output allows. Then a second circuit of 2 hanging lights above the dining table.
 
GSXRMovistar said:
I got my gear from a company called Highline Lighting. Each of the two lighting zones are hooked up to small LED controller units each being powered by a 24V driver which in turn takes a 240v mains feed.

The wall touch panel isn’t physically attached to the controller units, it controls them over radio and runs off a standard 240v feed.
Click to expand...

Can you provide part numbers?

I'm looking for a similar, but simpler setup. Just one zone (split in the middle over the hob), with the radio touch panel.

Where are your drivers/controllers mounted? Just trying to work out how it all connects together, what cabling needs to be used and channelled into the wall, etc.
 
Mu kitchen is a similar layout and I just wired the spots above the kitchen area seperately into 2 circuits, with the one over the dining area on a dimmer. When we have people over we keep the under-cupboard lights on and turn the overhead spots off in the kitchen - perfect ambience.
 
wow GSXRMovistar that is an amazing kitchen!

that LED lighting makes it look outstanding I am also interested in which part numbers I would require in total....
 
Got some Cree led cool white spot bulbs for the kitchen in previous place, unexpectedly the colour was almost identical to that of a gas flame, so it is difficult to see to adjust the gas hob, albeit they are great otherwise for work surface food prep.
 
16 to 20 spots is a lot for the size of the room! Our kitchen is around 3.5m x 4m and we have 9 spot lights and had to replace some of the GU10s with 5w ones to drop the brightness down.

Key thing I would do is forget worrying about having a nice grid layout of lights on the ceiling and position them where they are actually required (cooker, sink, aimed at worktops etc), then have a hanging light for the table.

I would go with 3 circuits personally:
- Kitchen
- Dining room
- Feature hanging light in the dining room
 
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Something like this assuming you are going for lower wattage (5-7w). I'd run the green light on a dimmable circuit, the 4 round the table on a dimmable circuit and the rest on a dimmable circuit. It gives you 600w equivalent of lighting before you add the under counter lighting and pendant light.


kitchenocuk.jpg


It gives you lighting for:
- The sink
- The cooker
- The low level cupboards
- The fridge plus avoids the dark spot that could be caused by the edge of the fridge on the worktop side

It might be worth thinking about how bright you want the dining area though. The above will give a dimmer dining area than kitchen which usually makes sense (i.e. brighter for the task area) but if you intend to use the table for tasks as well I'd consider adding another spot light.
 
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Jesus christ, lay off the copy and paste, that's about twice amount you need :p

And the locations are a fair way off from where you really need down lights.

I'll sketch something up.
 
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BigChin1 said:
Can you provide part numbers?

I'm looking for a similar, but simpler setup. Just one zone (split in the middle over the hob), with the radio touch panel.

Where are your drivers/controllers mounted? Just trying to work out how it all connects together, what cabling needs to be used and channelled into the wall, etc.
Click to expand...
Apologies I missed this, believe you would need the following however best to email them first with your needs as they are really helpful.

Controller : https://www.hiline-lighting.co.uk/g...ngle-colour-controller-4ch-5060440711350.html
Power driver : https://www.hiline-lighting.co.uk/g...0w-24v-ip20-premium-series-5060440711787.html
LED Strip : https://www.hiline-lighting.co.uk/g...-rgbcw-24v-nano-waterproof-5060440711015.html
Wall panel : https://www.hiline-lighting.co.uk/g...ess-led-controller-4-zones-5060440711060.html
 
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