Transforming a Dark Kitchen Space
/How to maximise the light in your kitchen with a few handy tips.
Everyone dreams of sitting in their kitchen as dappled sunlight bounces off the worktops, flooding the room with a warm golden glow. However, for some people this is just that – a dream. With many houses having north facing windows, it being traditional for the kitchen to be exiled into the darkest room of the house. But with kitchens becoming the hub of social interaction, we are craving bright, open spaces with devoted seating areas and room for leisure activities. But how do you turn the dullest room in your home into a cosy bright family hub?
Here are three ways to help bring some light into a dark space:
Colour
Unsurprisingly, lighter paint colours play a huge part in brightening your space. Using shades like Little Greene’s Inox allows for the light to bounce off the surfaces and back into the room at the same time as adding warmth. With that being said, do not shy away from using dark accent colours. Darker tones can help to underline and accentuate the lighter colours and create a multidimensional feel to the space. Here, contrasting Inox with Lamp Black creates a strong dynamic between the cabinets.
Lighting
There are so many beautiful variations of light fixtures it can become lost in the sea of choices. Among hundreds of different styles, with easy installation and most striking results, under cabinet lighting is the most favoured. The most common type being LED strips: energy saving, long lasting, and with many colour choices it is easy to see why they are the most popular choice among our clients. Their bright light helps to illuminate dark corners and shadows created by wall cabinets whilst also aiding cooking and food preparation.
A close second to LED strips are pendant lights. Often hung above or over the island or peninsular, not only do they add a much-needed source of light but also an extra decorative aspect to the room. Coming in thousands of styles, shapes, and colours these lights are often used as a centrepiece for the kitchen that ties together the whole room. You could match it to the handles in your kitchen to create a consistency or pick a complimentary colour to add a little bit of spice to the room.
Free Space
Possibly the most important, and most overlooked, aspect of brightening up a room is creating free space. A crowded room is far more likely to become dark due to the number of shadows being cast by the multitude of items. Adding areas where walls can be seen between the cabinets, or even limiting the number of cabinets used will create open, unbroken spaces which will make the room seem more open and freer.
This effect can easily be created by opting for shelves instead of wall cabinets, or adding an island instead of adding a return to a cabinet run.