Creating the Ultimate Kitchen Lighting Setup

How we took tips from top lighting designers to create the ultimate kitchen lighting setup

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0:00 Introduction
1:03 Multiple lighting circuits
7:09 Abandon Symmetry
7:47 Light Engines
8:35 Adjustable and Glare
10:11 Downlight Install
12:07 LED strips
16:01 Subscribe to Me!

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LET'S CONNECT!
Charlie DIYte
#kitchen #lighting #setup

[denisekennedy]

I’m Charlie-famous! Ridiculously chuffed for mentioning my post, Charlie. I’d add that, as well as the black inner on the downlighters which has massively reduced glare, also look at ones which come with a black baffle - a honeycomb pattern of mesh - to sit beneath the bulb. In my hallway where I forgot to fit dimmers, the honeycomb mesh thingy really softened the light from the utilitarian downlighters I inherited from the previous owners. Your kitchen looks amazing, Charlie. Really beautiful job.

[stco]

Very good. I just fitted two under cabinet lamps and they have transformed the kitcken. Wish I'd done this years ago. Didn't know there was a magic '300mm' but I opted for half the cabinet depth as it illuminated the counter top well and evenly. Hardest bit was chasing the wiring within voids.
Really like the LED strips you fitted and they complement the pendants. Lighting has really changed. Not that long ago I had a different kitchen with 14 x 50W GU lights. You never needed the heating on in that room, but it was pricey just to illuminate!

[albeal]

My kitchen had under cupboard lighting for the worktop but the switch was in the awkwardly in the cupboard. I installed some IR sensors and fixed them up hidden at the back. One of the simplest and my favourite mods in the house. It means a quick wave to turn on and no dirty fingers on the switches as you'll often have dirty hands when you need the light. One things to note, steam can set them off, so set them away from the hob/kettle.

[olliec]

Thanks Charlie, I would have loved this video when I was doing my kitchen last year. I asked the electrician about lighting design but he barely offered anything useful. And I didn't find many good youtube vids out there. And I can't believe phos just gave you a small discount. With 400k subs they should be biting your arm off and paying for the entire installation just to get a mention.

[BenRelle]

Thanks for the shout out - glad to see it worked out well, although I knew it would!

[adamf]

Great results and glad you spoke to Guy. I did the same year's ago and it opened my eyes into lighting design.

The lights I installed were also removed when I moved house, as they were far too good to leave for the new owners and are being installed in my new place.

Having a few extras is vital as I had a few die after 5 years of constant on/off use (in a utility).

[keithgarrett]

Ooo. I came up with the separate dimmer thing and now feel happier that I've seen it online as well. I wasn't going for looks, just that you don't really want to hit a dimmer each time you go into a kitchen. Thanks for all the info. The distances from walls etc and non-symmetrical design has really helped!

[georgehavey]

Very well thought through and designed. I did a light retrofit using smart home and HomeAssistant. I converted two pendants to spotlights and then added 3 pendants above the dining table, all on the same circuit. I then used IKEA's smart bulbs with colour temp control. So now I can control groups of lights as if they were on different circuits and I have cool, high Kelvin lights in the day, and warm lights in the evening.

To keep the light switches functional I had to do something very convoluted.

[Rob-lndd]

Nice job Charlie, I'm an electrician and i can't abide visible grid layout ceiling spots.

In my renovation, 6 years ago i went for the plaster in concealed spots, under cab leds, hanging mood lights, indirect uplights. 7 switchable circuits. But also avoid the programmable lighting controls as they invariably break, parts become unavailable then it's downhill from the.

Beautiful... Youre doing a great job

👍

[robertbaker]

Great video with a lot of tips. I would recommend a smart lighting controller. Our kitchen has 6 circuits and a table lamp and having multiple switch points would be a nightmare to setup and maintain. Instead we have Lutron RA2 controllers on each circuit and used their Pico remotes wherever we need them. Instead of controlling the independent circuits, you switch scenes depending on your purpose. So you van have a general turn everything on scene plus another to set the mood for dining or a party. It is retrofitable on regular UK lighting circuits so we have added this across most of our lights in the house. It does have smart integrations and a really simple to use app but you don’t need it for day to day use and the many technophobe guests to our house have no issue turning lights on and off.

One of the best smart features for me is turning lights off automatically that my teenage kids like to leave on, some to a set schedule others for a specified time after they were switched on. Another cool feature is the smart home away which I turn on when going on holiday and it replays the past two weeks of lighting to make the house look more occupied when we are away. This was all easily setup on the app.

Lurton isn’t cheap but they have a wireless system that just works. Some of the cheaper systems work most of the time and will need the occasional tinkering to keep it working. My RA2 system has worked faultlessly even though I had no prior experience installing it. There are professional installers who fit it for you but you can get the modules yourself and get your own competent person to install and program the system yourself.

[Smithb]

Glad you are pleased with all of your hard work Charlie, it's looking great! Love the green kitchen units.
I'm surprised you don't have a dustcatcher when drilling downlights.. but then i suppose it's also having space to store everything! Tool space is really at a premium for me nowadays

[BaldAlan]

Nicely done Charlie.
I work for PHOS in the north, and the story of our business is a great story to tell.

[TJP]

This brings me back to a whole house renovation in 2007. Smart homes and lighting were just taking off and I wanted to incorporate that into the design as much as I could. I invested into a 24 channel iLight system and planned all the circuits myself. I got about 70% of it right which left me frustrated that it didn't really live up to the cost and expectation. I bought a LED panel for the kitchen that controlled all the channels and scenes around the house but it just wasn't programmed that well and was very confusing for people visiting. I made some mods to the actual lights. Over the Island did the usual 6 spots and around the perimeter of the kitchen/diner (11x5m) were 22 more spots. I replaced the 6 island spots with 3 pendants and removed about a dozen more spots...huge improvment. Biggest improvement was finding an iLight specialist that re-programmed the whole system including phone app and only now do I feel it was worth the investment. Keep up the good work.

[jamesfurz]

Looks fantastic Charlie! When I did my under counter LEDs on my new kitchen I used COB CCT LED strip, which lets you adjust the colour temperature by a cheap and cheerful LED driver from amazon. This lets you have a blue white mode for when you're working and a yellow white for relaxing... in reality we never change it, haha!. Also since it was basically a retrofit and not hard wired in by a sparkie I used Ikea remote sockets (TRÅDFRI) to power them, and the above cabinet unicorn puke RGBIC, this gives you a little switch which is magnetic so is stuck to the side of the fridge. A good option for retrofitting and no need for a sparkie. You can add a hub to get some smart functionality with the Ikea stuff, but I don't need any of that.

[MuseumsBloke]

Excellent video. Love the results you’ve achieved with this scheme, Charlie, and of course it’s highly informative. Thanks for sharing, as always.

[hb]

It’s funny isn’t it how people who do things properly, perfectly, accurately with attention to detail have to almost apologetically self-diagnose with OCD. Were all great artists OCD because they painted perfectly? No. It’s normal and healthy to obsess over things you love. So be like Charlie and cherish your fastidiousness. That’s how you end up with a beautiful kitchen with perfect lighting as in this video.

[Painyourmind]

Lovely attention to detail Charlie, my only comment would be to make sure you install fire rated down lights and lighting wherever possible, often people overlook this and it can void home insurance. Also buy spares of all the lighting you install as in 2-3 years often things become discontinued and you end up with a problem.

[PaulBakewell]

I would love to see all the kitchen lighting made Smart. Something I have thought about doing in my own home a lot since moving in two years ago but never got started. By the way Great Video!

[andyc]

Thanks Charlie, and good to hear from you again ! It's always interesting to hear what you have to say, as despite your wealth of hard won experience, you still speak very much as a home-owner/DIYer which keeps you relatable.

Our kitchen lights are shocking - a 3way spot & 4 way spot-bar (Led GU10s) centred in the middle of an 18x11 ft room, wherever you stand you are casting a hard shadow and thus have poor light to work by. I've been puzzling over what to do about it so this gives me some more ideas so thank you. I love those LED strip-light connectors btw.


You're sounding a bit rough mate, hope you're feeling better soon.

[hbrealhousewife]

Love the under cupboard lights. All of them are great. 😊