light placement advice

9 years ago

I have two sort of separate but related questions about the lighting in my kitchen. Originally I had planned 8 recessed lights, some under cabinet lighting and 2 pendant lights over the peninsula. They just put up the beam that supports the load bearing wall that they took down and it's bigger than I expected. I have 8ft ceilings and the beam comes down about a foot. That beam is over the peninsula, so I'm thinking I probably don't want to hang pendant lights from a 7ft beam. The contractor doesn't seem to think that would be a problem, but I'm thinking it would break the room up a lot and just sort of accentuate the fact that the beam is there.

My other question is where I should have the cans for the recessed lights. Originally I figured they would be evenly spaced like two rows of 4, but then I was reading some old threads and thinking I need light over the sink. So given this plan, where should my lights go? (there are going to be floating shelves next to the stove, no cabinets. So the only under cabinet lighting will be the two 30" on the top right and the two 24" cabinets on the bottom left.

Here's a layout with the red line showing about where the beam is. And then there are a couple of crappy pictures showing the beam and how low the ceiling is.

(the white box in the lower left is actually the edge of the staircase to the basement, so that 'wall' extends all the way into the dining room (which is on the left))

Featured Answer

Karenseb

9 years ago

Megan, my daughter is going through the same dilemma right now. She should get her counters in tomorrow and we are going to hold the 2 pendants (she bought them 5 years ago. They match her breakfast room light) over the kitchen side and then the family room side to see if she likes them. She is already wired for the pendants, but if she doesn't like them, she will do two recessed lights on the family room side. She already has recessed lights on the kitchen side. It will be a hard decision since she likes the pendants.

We will let you know what she decides. It is a matter of personal taste and layout I suppose.

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Comments (9)

eam44
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
There is a science to light placement in the kitchen and I theres actually a lighting forum that may be helpful to you, so check it out. There have also been some fantastic threads on this forum about kitchen lighting. Regarding the peninsula, you could opt for flush mount fixtures instead of hanging fixtures, puck lights embedded in a decorative beam cover (or drywall if it will be drywalled), or just stick with can lights.
Megan thanked eam44
sheloveslayouts
9 years ago
I'd probably just do small (monopoint?) lights in some kind of track attached to the breakfast nook side of the beam.
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Joseph Corlett, LLC
9 years ago
I love the remodel cans. Rough in the wire, then drill the drywall for perfect placement after everything else is in. Virtually impossible to screw up placement.
Megan
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks Karen! I also will have recessed lights in the kitchen side and was looking forward to the beauty of some pendants. I thought they would add a nice decorative aspect.
bbtrix
9 years ago
My daughter has a trunk line soffit over her peninsula. It's at 7'. I thought recessed lights would be best but she really wanted pendants. We installed J boxes so if the pendants didn't work out we could change them to the low profile lights we added to the same soffit that runs to the family room (2nd pic). I also installed 6 4" recessed lights in addition to the pendant over the sink. This is an older shot as I'm not finished with this DIY project yet and haven't taken recent progress pics. There will be seating at the peninsula.

Since yours is a beam, where would you want the pendants?
Megan thanked bbtrix
Megan
Original Author
9 years ago
thanks bbtrix! those pendants look great and I'm not getting the claustrophobic feeling or feeling like they are blocking my line of sight. I think I've decided to go with lights in the beam like eam44 posted, so thanks for that eam44.

We can't put lights in the support beam obviously, but we are going to build a small soffit around the beam to hide the duct work as well as the recessed lighting, and I am working on figuring out how to put wood facing on it to make it look like the whole thing is one big support beam made out of reclaimed wood or something similar. Then we would have the lights coming out of that wood facing like in the second photo eam44 posted.
Karenseb
9 years ago
Hi Megan. My daughter liked the pendants more on the kitchen side of her beam, but decided to forgo the pendants for a couple of recessed lights on the family room side over thr edge of the countertop. In her layout she liked the more open feel and could use more lighting in the family room. Good luck on your project.
Megan thanked Karenseb
Megan
Original Author
9 years ago
thanks Karenseb - I've decided to go with recessed lighting. The whole purpose in taking down the wall was to make the space feel like one big room, I feel like the pendants would break that up. However, I also felt like the pendants were the 'jewelry' in the kitchen design, so we've added a light over the sink and a light in the center of the kitchen to add ambient light and that decorative effect.