Pendant Lighting: Tips For the Kitchen

Let’s all be honest here for a second. There has to be more to kitchen lighting than simple downlights, right? I mean, everybody seems to have them, and they’ve been “on trend” for what feels like the past twenty years. 

Oh, wait, yes there is. It’s called pendant lighting, and it’s going to blow your mind with how much cooler it is. 

At Steel Lighting Co., we’re pretty big fans of pendant lights. In fact, we have a whole selection of ceiling-mounted lights, with most of them being essentially designed for the kitchen as a pendant light. 

There’s something special about barn-style lighting that makes it perfect for pendant lighting, especially in the kitchen. Whether you’re looking for an industrial or farmhouse vibe in your home, or perhaps something in between, barn-style steel lights are usually the best way to go. 

In saying that, that doesn’t mean we don’t need to take in a few pointers. There are a lot of ways that pendant lighting can be used correctly as well as incorrectly. Knowing the difference between the two is a surprisingly complex yet critical aspect of making pendant lighting work for you. 

Thankfully, you don’t have to be in the dark anymore. We’ve gone and made this cheeky guide on pendant lighting that’s going to help you make all of the right decisions and turn your kitchen from a box standard downlight fiasco into a pendant-powered machine of good taste. 

So continue below dear reader, and see for yourself what pendant lighting is capable of with the right tips and tricks. 

Plan It Out

Pendant lighting thrives in the kitchen, and it does this more than any other kind of lighting available. The thing about pendant light is that it benefits the most from a keen eye for detail and solid planning. 

The earlier you make a solid plan for your kitchen overall, the sooner you can consider your lighting. Kitchen design can be a tricky thing because of how many different spaces and features are required. Where you position your countertops and how you subdivide the area can be a headache on its own. 

We always recommend creating a mood board of your own. This will help you decide on key features and styles in the kitchen and whether the space, like above a kitchen island, is appropriate for pendant lighting. 

Bright Lights Above

A little known or appreciated element to a good kitchen light is the idea of brightness. Managing the brightness and brilliance of light can be hugely important to making the best of your kitchen style. 

It’s essential to think about your lights’ brightness and consistency as so many tasks in the kitchen are dependent on different types. For example, for more intensive cooking, you may choose to add additional downlights to create an extra layer of visibility and safety. 

If you use parts of your kitchen for entertaining, less bright bulbs also work well as mood setters. Ceiling lights, such as Steel Lighting Co.’s Rose Bowl light, work wonders in this regard. In particular, the Rose Bowl provides a tremendous amount of light while retaining a gorgeous mid-century feel that timelessly blends into just about any home. 

Colour It In

Like brightness, color can be hugely influential on your finished kitchen’s final look and vibe. Naturally, this makes it an important consideration when choosing to go down the route of using pendant lighting. 

If your kitchen is full of neutral colors, you can effectively counteract this by using a warmer color light to bring color into the space without adjusting the color scheme. In this way, your own pendant lights become statement makers and center points of the area naturally and without coming across as forced or overly obvious. 

Around the Globe

Thankfully, choosing the right kind of brightness and color can often be a simple choice of bulb more than anything. We’ve spoken a lot in previous blogs about the good and bad of different bulbs, with our personal faves being the indelible Light Emitting Diode (LED). 

However, there’s another way to look at what kind of bulb you can think of being appropriate for your pendant light or kitchen setup. That can be done by looking at the bulbs Color Rendering Index of CRI. CRI is essentially the measurement of the color of an object under certain light types. The higher the index rating, the closer the thing will appear as its actual color. 

This can be massively useful for those that own wooden floorboards or countertops. A high-quality bulb with a high CRI rating will display a wooden surface in such a way as to appear true to its actual color, which can be huge for enthusiasts of natural materials. 

A Numbers Game

Finally, a critical element to choosing your pendant lights is the number and positioning of the lights themselves. Again, there are a ton of variables at play when planning out and building your own kitchen. As a result, it pays to have a good idea of the number and arrangement of the lights you want to use. 

In the case of pendant lighting, three large lights are traditionally the best way to go, though you may find that number varies considerably, depending on the sizer of the kitchen at play. 

Steel barn-style lights excel in this capacity, with lights like the Carson and Eagle Rock being popular choices for pendant lighting and kitchen lighting. Both provide a fantastic amount of light and, when arranged in the traditional three-light system above a kitchen island, look incredible in any home. 

If you need help making the right choice of lighting for your kitchen, then contact our friendly team at Steel Lighting Co.,  our friendly team of experts would be more than happy to give some advice and recommendations on what kind of steel barn light can best suit your kitchen needs.