Your Bad Lighting Is Making Your Kitchen Look Cramped

As the place where you spend time with your family, share a meal with friends, or enjoy a coffee break every day, your kitchen deserves a design that does it justice. But sometimes, you can pick the perfect kitchen aesthetic, curate the elements to match, and bring in the right decor to tie everything together — and still feel like something is missing. If the room looks cramped and uninviting despite your efforts to design a cozy oasis, you might be making some lighting mistakes that leave your kitchen looking dull and tired. When a kitchen is poorly lit, the whole space can feel smaller and gloomier, taking away from the homey feel you want in your family's gathering place.

If your kitchen lighting is bad, it doesn't only affect the aesthetic appeal of the space. With all the chopping, cooking, and cleanup that goes into preparing your daily meals, you need good visibility to get the job done and stay safe while you're at it. Luckily, lighting mistakes are usually easy to fix. You just need to put a little effort into planning your kitchen's lighting layout, prioritizing layered lighting schemes that make the room feel larger and warmer while boosting functionality.

To brighten up a dark kitchen and make it feel more spacious, a layered scheme employs three types of lighting: task, ambient, and accent. Task lighting refers to illumination of all the spaces where you need functional visibility for meal prep and similar activities, like your countertops or kitchen island. Meanwhile, ambient lighting is your main source of light in the room, such as an overhead fixture. Finally, accent lights provide a final touch that pulls the scheme together by highlighting specific areas you want to stand out.

When planning your kitchen's lighting, start from the base layer: ambient light. Depending on your preferences and kitchen layout, this can be a ceiling light, chandelier, or recessed lighting along your whole kitchen setup. Once your main source of light is covered, introduce the task lighting layer. For example, you can put pendant lights above your kitchen island or install some under-cabinet lighting to brighten up your countertops and make meal prep easier. To complete the look, add some drama with extra lights focused on your kitchen decor, architectural elements, or any dark spot you want to glow up a bit.

While the right lighting layout will take you a long way, choosing the right color lights will help you get the best results. Sometimes, cooler tones can make a room seem larger, but overdoing it can result in a kitchen that feels lifeless and clinical. To avoid this scenario, balance cooler lighting with warmer tones through your accent lights, or use dimmers to adjust the brightness and color temperature as necessary.