Kitchen pendant lighting ideas to consider.

How many times have you heard 'home is where the heart is'? Your kitchen needs the most love when it comes to lighting, after all they are the central point of homes today. There are 1000's of different pendant lights online you can get for practical use but why not go the extra mile selecting a light which creates a warm yet stylish kitchen that people want to spend time in. Now that's a job done!

Whether it's sitting at your kitchen island with a glass of red or spending quality time with the family having a special dinner, lighting is key. It creates an inviting, romantic and fun atmosphere but most of all, a practical function. Kitchen pendant lights are the best place to start when combining functionality with a designer look.

Planning your Kitchen Lighting

When your designing your kitchen, at the earliest stage you should make a plan on how you want it all to look and feel. The earlier you can do this the more options you will have to make work rather then have to stick something in to fit. Kitchen pendant lights can change the mood considerably so you should look at building your kitchen around them not the other way around.  Below are all the points for you to consider, a great way to achieve this is by creating a mood board. You can choose your tiles , flooring, cupboard colours, bench top and most importantly lighting. Mood boards allow you to match colours and achieve harmony prior to begging the kitchen renovation. What most people are not aware of though is how important is to choose high quality lighting fixtures with high CRI. CRI stands for colour rendering index – this is how true light makes colour appear. The higher the CRI the truer the colour appears. So if you use a high CRI globe/light fitting above your wooden floor boards, marble bench top and décor you are re-investing in them by allowing them to appear true in
their colour.

Pendant Lighting Colour

When choosing your pendant lamp colour sometimes your decision is already made by every previous choice around your kitchen. If your kitchen is full of neutral colours then you will want a splash of colour to uplift your layout, if this is the case for you this is a great opportunity to make a real statement with your kitchen pendant lamps. If you are content with all the colours in your kitchen then look to pendant light colour which will blend in.

Brightness of globes for pendant lighting

Before purchasing your pendant lighting you must consider the brightness you need to get out of the light itself, you may have extra downlights to turn on when cooking etc, however you may need to use your pendant lighting as task lighting over your island bench. A small range of pendant lights will be built in LED which means you can't change the globe and make it brighter if needed. Most pendant lights however will take a E27 edison screw in globe which is most ideal as you can adjust the brightness more if needed and replace when dead. For kitchen pendant light you will want a 3000k or 4000k temperature. Look also to go over the top with the brightness of the globe and put on a dimmer so you can adjust to the perfect brightness. 

Which Globe To Buy For Your Pendant

There are load of different types of globes you can put into your kitchen island pendants but you want to make sure you improve the look of it with your globe choice. Our 2 favourite types are a LED filament globe and a carbon filament globe . 

Below is a LED G125 E27 by Mercator, this globe is for you if need that extra brightness for your tasks, this however means the light output is a little glary so we recommend installing dimmer switch.

Below is a carbon filament E27 G125 which is our favourite as it creates the maximum amount of ambience. This globe however is not the brightest and is not suited for tasks so you will need to make sure your downlights are sufficient lighting. What this globes lacks in brightness make up for in creating a warm mood.

Make sure before you buy your globes that they will fit proportionally right, do not buy a small globe for a large sized pendant and visa versa, test and make sure it suits.

Size & Number Pendants For Your Kitchen

An important decision to make is to workout the total size of your kitchen/island bench and then make a decision on how big your pendants need to be off the back of that. You must then select the right amount to hang, 3 pendant lights is bar the most common as it has a great symmetrical look. 

Kitchen Island Pendant Size

When choosing your pendant lights for your kitchen island it is crucial to get the size right as it is task lighting but you also want to compliment your style. 

Look to choose pendants which have a slimline look so that all of the view is not blocked from each side of the island bench. You can also look to have the pendants raised at a higher height so they also don't block the view, however the higher pendants are put the less impact they will have.

Kitchen Pendant Light Positioning 

When positioning your lights it's crucial to get right the first time as there is no turning back, however the heights are typically adjustable. Click below for our past blog we wrote " How to Position Pendants Perfectly " 

Below we have a couple of different options which have work well for our past customers.  

Glass Kitchen Pendant 

The image below is a great example of having a glass pendant light so you can see through it and doesn't take away at all the look from your entertaining areas. When you have a beautiful layout like below the last thing you want to do is block out the view. 

Suspended LED Strip Lighting Profile

The image below is a very modern style on kitchen pendant light which is immensely popular today. This is LED strip lighting inside a aluminium profile and then suspended, this gives off a super practical light output but also offers a high end architectural look. This light you can buy out of the box on a shelf or we can actually customise to the millimeter to fit your island bench perfectly. This type of light is a great option if you are unsure about your styling or if you do not want to pay for a interior designer. This type of led profile pendant will give a real contemporary look and will remain stylish for years to come.

Solid Textured Pendant Light

Below is an example of a pendant solid finish which compliments the layers around it particularly the timber floor and bench top. This copper pendant light colour accentuates the kitchens overall appearance, because all the elements are neutral colours the copper texture breaks that up without clashing or being over the top. When having a fixed solid finish having the height and width is crucial. The height is always adjustable but not the width so plan well before buying.

Conclusion

When purchasing your pendant lighting for your kitchen you need to think is it task lighting? ambient lighting? Or decorative lighting? Off the back of this answer, plan your kitchen lighting. Don't be a afraid to go all out with your choice and make it the hero of the kitchen. If you want help with selecting the perfect pendant lighting for your kitchen please contact our lighting designer, Emily , we ship thousands of pendant lights to Australia alone from around the world.