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When planning a kitchen renovation, choosing cabinets, countertops, and appliances takes up a lot of brain space, so you’d be forgiven if you left lighting until the end of the process. But this would be a big mistake.
Lighting may seem simple—just throw a fixture or two on the ceiling, right?—but it should be one of the most carefully considered elements of a kitchen design. “Lighting is all about making your everyday life easier, simpler, and more efficient, says IKEA Field Interior Designer Barry Reidy.
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Proper lighting is critical for your kitchen to function the way in which it’s intended. You need directed light over task-oriented areas like the stovetop and chopping board for safety, plus you want to ensure that you can adequately see inside all of your storage compartments.
It’s also key for aesthetics; different lighting adds ambience and enhances the overall design. “It’s that ‘wow’ factor in the kitchen, ” says Kathleen Wilber, IKEA Senior Sales Leader. “When customers are impressed by our inspirational rooms, it’s because of the lighting.”
While outfitting an entire kitchen with new lighting is not cheap, Wilber says this is not an area where you want to cut costs. “I’ve had instances where customers cut their budget and had to cut the lighting out of their purchase, and they regretted it afterwards, ” she cautions. “It just wasn’t the same.”
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This is your main source of light. In the kitchen, it often comes in the form of track, recessed, pendant, flush-mounted, or a combination that supplements any natural light. It should be evenly cast from the ceiling, and generally, the higher and brighter, the better.
Ambient lighting should also illuminate key areas of the kitchen, like the island or over the sink and counters. If you're opting for recessed lighting—the standard in larger kitchens—plot out the lights along the edge of your countertops, with two to three feet between each light. If you have a smaller space, one flush-mounted light in the center of the room should be enough.
This is an area where IKEA really stands out from the competition. The retailer offers five lighting series—OMLOPP, STRÖMLINJE, TRÅDFRI, URSHULT, and IRSTA—that provide solutions for just about any targeted area in the kitchen. (All use LED lights, so they’re energy-efficient, too.)
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Under-cabinet lighting is a must for every kitchen: It illuminates your countertops so you can easily see things like the coffee machine or toaster and safely perform tasks like chopping and preparing food. “If you think about the lighting in your ceiling, whether it’s general or track lighting, it can be quite difficult to direct that pool of light under your kitchen cabinets, ” explains Reidy. “Under-cabinet lighting ensures that you have the correct lighting for the task that you need to perform.”
One super clever offering from IKEA is the OMLOPP LED light strip for drawers. In-drawer lighting probably isn’t something that you’ve considered, but let Wilber persuade you: “You don’t even have to turn on all of the lights in your kitchen if they’re off. Just opening your drawer provides enough light for you to find what you want. I love to wow my guests with that.”
Here’s where you can have some fun and show off your personality. One of the best ways to do this is to install spotlights inside your cabinets to showcase your dish collection or glassware. IKEA offers a handful of styles that work with both modern and traditional cabinetry, and the products from the integrated series can be dimmed and synchronized to turn on and off at the same time with a remote control.
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A design element. IKEA sells dozens of stylish pendants, from the boldly-colored FÄRGSTARK and industrial HEKTAR to the classic and beloved woven SINNERLIG and simple globe HÖLJES. Pendants should be hung at least 30 to 36 inches above the counter or table. If you’re hanging a series of pendants over an island, they should be approximately 30 to 32 inches apart, and at least six inches from the edge of the countertop.
You can also use accent lighting as a way to spotlight different elements in the kitchen: Give a little extra love to your cabinetry, highlight your plant-filled open shelving, or showcase a piece of art. A fixture like the TIDIG, which has five lights, can be both the ambient light and spotlight; just angle the cans as necessary.
“You need functional lighting mixed in with general and mood lighting, ” says Reidy. “When you bring all of that together, then your kitchen will work for you.”
Under Cabinet Lighting Installation Tips
From Good Housekeeping for IKEA All You Need: Welcome to The Kitchenpedia From Good Housekeeping for IKEA Built-in Dishwasher From Good Housekeeping for IKEA Countertops From Good Housekeeping for IKEA Doors and Drawers
From Good Housekeeping for IKEA Everything In Its Place From Good Housekeeping for IKEA Financing From Good Housekeeping for IKEA Glassware From Good Housekeeping for IKEA Hardware
From Good Housekeeping for IKEA Islands From Good Housekeeping for IKEA Just Right From Good Housekeeping for IKEA Knives From Good Housekeeping for IKEA Modular KitchensWe’ve done so few upper cabinets in our recent kitchens that we actually haven’t installed under cabinet lighting in ANY of them. But we did install it under the cabinets in our laundry room and – surprise! – I just came across a bunch of pictures of the installation process that I took waaaaaay back in 2014 but never shared. It’s a remarkably straightforward process, so it could be an easy upgrade if you needed more task lighting in your kitchen, laundry room, or any other space with upper cabinets.
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The cabinets in here are from Ikea, so we also used one of their stock under-cabinet lighting options called GRUNDTAL Spotlights. These don’t appear to be sold anymore, but the current OMLOPP spotlight seems to be a similar (even improved!) version. The OMLOPP ones are now LED and are lower profile, plus some cord management covers are included, which is nice. Based on the downloadable instruction sheet, the new ones install almost exactly the same way, sothe same basic steps I’m about to outline for you here still apply.
Most people do one spotlight per cabinet but we wanted to give the appearance of one continuous bar of light, rather than distinct spotlights under each cabinet, so we decided to do more. The GRUNDTALs were sold as 3 packs, so we did 6, but 4 or 5 probably would’ve done the job just fine.
The first step, once everything is unpackaged, is to pop the actual lightbulb portion of each spotlight out of its casing, leaving the wiring in place.
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This exposes the holes that you’re supposed to screw through to secure the light to the underside of your cabinet. Just be sure to measure and mark your placement before you start doing this. We centered each spotlight front-to-back on the cabinet and spaced them equally apart side-to-side (around 10″ away from the next one). We secured ours using 1/2″ screws so that they wouldn’t poke through the inside of the cabinet. Then the light just snaps back into place.
Once all of your spotlights are secured, you need to connect everything to the transformer box. This is sold separately from the new OMLOPP spotlights, as is the power cord. I know that sounds kinda crazy, but they sell things a la carte like that because the number of transformers and power cords you need depends on how many spotlights you’re installing (you can add up to 9 spotlights per box, and up to 10 boxes per power cord). The photo below is how I wired my spotlights to the transformer box, but the new stuff is even easier – it’s basically like plugging in a phone charger.
At this point your installation may look something like this. The cord situation is not very pretty, but before dealing with that it’s always a good idea to check that all of your connections work.
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The transformer just plugs into any regular outlet and it has a toggle switch on the cord, so you can get everything powered up without the help of an electrician. So it was super easy to get ours working within minutes.
The newer spotlights come with some cord covers to help hide the wires against the bottom of the cabinet, but you still might have to get creative with all the extra wire between the cabinet and the transformer. I picked up a variety of cord management options from the store and the most helpful items ended up being these mounting ties (basically a zip tie with a screw hole) and some wire staples(you may need to swap in different nails or screws if the provided ones are long enough to poke through your cabinet bottom).
Yours probably won’t look quite this messy with the newer system, but you can see what I did with ours. I wrapped up most of the excess wire in a zip tie (screwed in
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