Lighting for north facing kitchen

3 years ago

last modified: 3 years ago

Hi everyone,

We are currently extending our kitchen to form a kitchen/diner, but are struggling to visualise what lighting or colours would work best for the room.

It will have a north-facing picture window overlooking the garden, east-facing patio doors out to the terrace, and two Velux windows in the new part. I have uploaded the plan/dimensions below.

We've been generating quotes/designs via Howdens and DIY Kitchens so far and I've uploaded the plans/mock ups below. We are broadly happy with this in terms of layout, but are now moving on to lighting and colour choices.

Currently, we are thinking of downlights in the "old" part of the kitchen, which will have a normal flat ceiling, and also directional downlights in the vaulted ceiling of the extension part. Plus some under cabinet lighting.

As per the visuals below, except this doesn't show the vaulted ceiling, which would be over the sink/hob/patio doors. We are also having fully glazed sliding patio doors to the terrace (not part glazed French doors as shown), a solid internal door to the utility, and an open doorway (as shown) to the hallway, which will bring some sunlight from our south-facing front door and rooms:

We will have a table in the centre of the room, and are wondering whether we should also have some kind of pendant/feature lighting above this? I'm not sure we would want all the spots on during dinner, but just the under cabinet lighting would likely make the room too dark.

What sort of lighting options might look ok if hung under/near the RSJ? The table will likely run perpendicular to the beam, as the room is longest from sink to fridge/freezer.

Also, the visuals above just show some shelving near the hob, but we are undecided about this. We were originally thinking of keeping this wall quite clear, or with maybe just a shelf each side of the hob. We felt that we had enough cupboards and storage already, but we then weren't sure how to deal with lighting in this part of the room, if we had no wall cupboards or shelves. Any suggestions?

We did also do a mock up with wall cupboards, but just can't decide which we prefer! I like the look of more open shelving, but am not sure what we would store there (pasta etc maybe?) and also hate having to clean grease/dust from exposed items near to the hob! But wall cupboards might be overkill in terms of look and storage needs......

Finally, the south-west corner of the kitchen may prove quite dark, as we have a bank of tall units here and no option for wall lights or under cabinet lighting. Guessing the ceiling downlights will be fine in general here (only going to be using this area to walk through to utility or use the fridge etc), but I wonder how that dark corner will look if, say, we just had the under cabinet lighting on during the evening? Would uplighters here, onto the ceiling, be possible/helpful?

Thanks for reading and open to all suggestions! We are also not set on the colours show in these visuals, so tips for cabinet and wall colours for a north-facing room are also welcome :)

We will most likely go for either an off-white or pale grey for the cabinets (if that proves "warm" enough), but then I'm stumped for what colour to use on the walls to prevent the room from looking too cold or monotone - we like simple schemes and restful rooms, but would like a bit of colour too!

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Comments (2)

PRO
OnePlan
3 years ago
Hi !
Just looking at your plans briefly - it’s clear that due to cabinetry on all four walls - you won’t get a very big table in there ! You mentioned no wall units due to having enough storage elsewhere - but - if you had wall cabinets storage and storage to the patio doors on the top wall - you could take off some perimeter cabinets to give room for a table that’s larger than ‘just’ a four seater one ? There’s a lot more that could be done with this space in my professional opinion.

Re colours - in a north facing room if you chose ‘winter’ colours you will need to warm it up a tad with woods and other tricks like tactile accessories.

Scandi style for example uses whites and pale greys warmed up with pale woods and real or faux animal fur on benches or seats to add warmth ...

Alternatively brilliant white cabinetry on pale Egyptian Cotton walls can look great too and is warmer than most grey toned paint .

re lighting - if this drawings is true and it’s a flat extension then lighting could be LEDs in ceiling throughout - but if the new part is a vaulted ceiling then cable lighting might work or stronger LEDs higher up could also work but there will be a shadow line where the change in height happens.

... To summarise, this is ok - could be better and if worked on by someone with more of a ‘design driven’ background - time could be spent trying different colours for you and looking at lighting options and the table would be included in the drawings to show you what space you actually end up with ... you could see what it could look like in a more real image.

If you click on my name or icon it will take to to my pro page with some past projects that might give you an idea of the difference a design done purposely for you, with no other agenda, could make. ( then send it to all the online retailers and builders merchants etc to compare like for like on their prices )
MrsTigs thanked OnePlan
MrsTigs
Original Author
3 years ago
Hi One Plan,

Many thanks for your reply :)

I can see what you mean about adding more wall storage and removing cabinets from all four walls - we could loose the run on the patio door wall fairly easily, but I’m not sure could put our larder fridge and freezer? And whether there would still be room for a big larder cupboard? We have a utility room too, but it’s not huge and already has to house the washing machine, small sink, broom cupboard, coats and wellies etc.

Having a huge table isn’t necessarily a top priority for u, as it’s just us and our two children - we rarely “entertain“ and if we do it’s a BBQ, buffet or just our parents or a couple of friends round for a take away after the kids are in bed!

Open to other suggestions for the room though, so will have to think on your ideas some more :)

Re lighting, the second part of the ceiling is vaulted - we were thinking of angled downlights here, but I did wonder if that would be sufficient. So maybe we will look at cable lighting going across this space instead.

Thanks for the suggestions re colour choice too :) Grey seems to be everywhere in the kitchen brochure, but I’m not sure if I like it, or whether it would work for a north/east facing room. I don’t really like the idea of the cream/ivory/cashmere type colours either though..... need to see some door samples in the flesh!

Perhaps, as you say, white or off-white is better. At the moment, we are leaning towards a wood worktop and possibly wood flooring too (although my husband leaning more towards tile as we are having underfloor hearing and he’s read that they retain heat better - he’s the cook in the house and suffers from very cold feet!)

Lots of food for thought.... so thanks again :)

Tigs
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Lighting for north facing kitchen

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OnePlan

MrsTigs
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Lighting for north facing kitchen

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MrsTigs
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