When remodeling your kitchen or bath, don’t forget to include lighting in your design plan. Replacing your traditional halogen or incandescent bulbs and fixtures with modern LED lighting has many benefits. LED lighting provides brighter, clearer lighting throughout the room, unlike low light halogen or incandescent bulbs can make it difficult to see what you’re doing unless you’re directly under the bulb. LED lights are also low profile and more versatile, available in ropes or strips. LED lighting also brings cost savings by using up to 75% less energy and last years longer than traditional lighting before needing to be replaced.
Besides overall design and layout, there are many colors, shapes, and brightness options for LED lighting. You can customize your LED lighting design to fulfill a variety of functions in your kitchen and bath, or use it strategically to make a good impression when selling your home.
Ambient
Ambient lighting can be used for more than just décor or setting a mood. It can be installed to function as the base layer of your overall lighting design for general illumination when evenly spread out in a room. This type of lighting can include downlights, recessed ceiling lights, concealed lights, and more.
Task
Because ambient lighting can’t provide all your lighting needs on its own, task lighting is a necessary element in your lighting design. Ambient lighting on its own will leave shadows under cabinets and in corners that make it hard to read recipes in the kitchen or do your makeup in the bathroom. LED strip lights or puck lights can be placed to brighten work areas and reduce “trip and fall” hazards in high-traffic areas of your home.
Accent
While task lighting illuminates kitchen and bathroom functions, accent lighting provides an entirely different function. Accent lighting can be specifically installed as a spotlight on certain elements of a room, such as to showcase treasured collectibles in a glass cabinet, or around the bottom of cabinets and islands, known as “toe-kick” lighting.
Even if you aren’t doing a remodeling project, updating your current lighting with a custom LED design is a great way to update and refresh the living areas in your home.