​Under-Cabinet Lighting: Brightening Up Your Kitchen Space

Table of Contents​

1. Key Takeaways
2. The Core Benefits of Under-Cabinet Lighting
   • a. Task Illumination
   • b. Ambiance Creation
   • c. Aesthetic Enhancement
   • d. Energy Efficiency
   • e. Increased Safety
3. Choosing Your Lighting Type
   • Puck Lights
   • Strip Lights
   • Bar Lights
4. Beyond the Basics
   • Smart Features
   • Color Temperature
   • Dimmability
5. Upgrade Your Kitchen With Under-Cabinet Lighting

Under-cabinet lighting can light up your kitchen. These lights will assist you while you are prepping your food, and give your kitchen a bright, clean, modern look. The options that you have available for under-cabinet lighting include LED strips, puck lights, and tape lighting.

This guide from Big Easy Lighting dives into actionable advice and points of contemplation to help you install under-cabinet lighting successfully.  See how we can help! Let’s bring more light and style to your kitchen. Reach out to our team today, and we’ll make your vision a reality.

Key Takeaways

• Under-cabinet lighting provides a useful function in your kitchen to enable you to see well when prepping and chopping food! Make a warm atmosphere with soft decorative lighting.
• Decorative enhancement – slim lighting design can enhance the kitchen area, irrespective of whether the kitchen is modern or traditional.
• LED lighting and other energy-efficient options will save you money each month on your electricity bill and have less impact on your maintenance and upkeep.
• Other advanced options include smart controls, motion sensors, and adjustable color temperatures, which mean you can customize your under-cabinet lighting system for maximum convenience and adaptability.
• There are three options of under-cabinet lighting to choose from: puck lights to light a specific area, strip lights for overall lighting, and bar lights for larger surface areas.

The Core Benefits of Under-Cabinet Lighting

Under-cabinet lighting is a useful and aesthetic improvement for any kitchen in three ways: usefulness, atmosphere, and efficiency. Below, we outline core benefits that make it a feature to covet in contemporary kitchens.

1. Task Illumination

Under-cabinet lighting is another great task lighting option for working on surfaces in your kitchen. They provide a more accurate experience while cooking and preparing food, as opposed to relying on overhead lights, which may create shadowing on your work surfaces. Under-cabinet lights ensure an even dispersion on your work surfaces.

2. Ambiance Creation

The warm light falling below the cabinets truly helps create a pleasant, inviting atmosphere in your kitchen. Dimmable lights assist you in deciding what brightness is right for a late-night cocktail party or a relaxing dinner with the family. Indirect accent lighting contrasts shapes in architecture or downplays features such as decorative backsplash tile or decorative gauge.

3. Aesthetic Enhancement

Undercabinet lighting emphasizes kitchen cabinetry finishes, open cupboards, and the kitchen’s décor for added depth and style. Concealed or recessed lighting has a cleaner and more modern feel; bar lighting can bring out the classic charm of traditional styles.

4. Energy Efficiency

LED under-cabinet lights will help the homeowner save on electric usage as well as get the longest service life. LEDs use less electricity and last 25 times as long as incandescent lamps, which makes for maintenance savings as well.

5. Increased Safety

Task lighting makes those late-night kitchen runs safer by eliminating tripping hazards and mixing bowl mishaps. Toe-kick lighting offers quiet guidance for stealthy hallway roamers, letting them get around without disturbing the troops.

Choosing Your Lighting Type

Select under-cabinet lights that result in both function and aesthetics in your kitchen. It all depends on your configuration, tasks, and design style.

• Puck Lights

Puck lights are small, flexible fixtures providing concentrated light. These are great for spot-lighting areas such as a countertop or shelf, perfect for chopping or reading recipes. Because they’re tiny, you can install them in the most inconvenient of spaces–like inside a cabinet–to accent something decorative.

• Strip Lights

Strip lights produce uninterrupted, even light along long countertops or under cabinets. Continuous strip/flexible band with LEDs, they’re ideal for contemporary kitchens that require a sleek, minimalist accent.

• Bar Lights

In addition to functioning well for linear, even lighting for expansive areas (long kitchen countertops or under tall cabinets), under-cabinet bar lighting has another function for jewelry. It generally looks modern even in a classical-style kitchen because of the polished minimalist design of the profiles.

Beyond the Basics

Even the basic under-cabinet lighting makes working in the kitchen more visible. But the higher-end bells and whistles can turn your kitchen into a dream workspace.

• Smart Features

With smart home technology, you can link your lights to a smart home system or mobile app and control your mood from the couch or from anywhere on the globe.

• Color Temperature

The decision of color temperature also considers how it affects efficacy and feelings. Warm whites (2700k-3000k) set up a cozy ambience perfect for relaxing while dining. Cool whites (3500K-5000K) establish better visibility for preparing food and more elaborate tasks that require more focused detail.

• Dimmability

Dimmable under-cabinet lighting provides options for how you may want to shape the light for whatever task you are doing, bright for cooking, soft for relaxing on a Sunday night. Dimming the light when you do not require full brightness will also provide maximum efficacy.

Upgrade Your Kitchen With Under-Cabinet Lighting

It provides task lighting for food preparation, accents your countertops, and provides a pleasant ambience to the room. It can be installed as LED strips, puck lights, or tape lighting; there are several choices to fit into your space and needs. These lights also use less energy and offer an opportunity to modernize your kitchen without major renovations.

Are you ready for an upgrade? Call us today at Big Easy Lighting; our trusted professionals are here to guide you. Let’s design and install the under-cabinet lighting that will make your kitchen shine and bring your vision to life!