How Much Light Will You Really Need for Your Dining Room Design?

Transcript – How Much Kitchen Light?

 

Step 1: Room Square Footage, Ceiling Height, Room Finishes

[00:00:00] All right, let’s design the lighting for a kitchen today, right? The first step is I need to figure out the square footage of this room. Let’s grab that probably about down to there.

Okay, 265. All right, so next we’re going to go over to our calculator. let’s assume that we’re going to do dark finishes for this room. So we’re going to use the last calculator.

I’ll select kitchen 265. And then we do have some tall ceiling, tall- ish ceilings at 10. All right. So now we know how many lumens we need for this room. I’ll put this back over here.

Step 2: Lighting Layout

So I have it for reference. Okay. So what I’ve done with the floor plan is just done an overlay of possible alignments that we could take some cues from. Looks like the island is centered on this range and the hood. So there’s some nice symmetry happening there. Got this sink over here. Maybe that’s an opportunity to line some things up. Uh, I I plan on using some down lights to provide most of the illumination in this space, and I do like to locate those lights about 4 to 6 inches away from the leading edge of the base cabinets. This allows you to get some light down into those base cabinets while also not casting a shadow onto the [00:02:00] countertop where you’re working, if you’re kind of over and if you’re doing some cutting, so it just kind of helps address some shadow issues.

A lot of people like to put lights in the middle here because it’s this. Symmetrical midpoints, but from a functional standpoint, I definitely like to keep the lights a little bit closer to the work surface itself. So that’s where we need the light. All right. So let’s start off by putting in some down lights.

Probably have one in the corner here. Probably have one over here and then. I do want to illuminate this hood vent, the cooktop is going to get illumination from the hood itself with, some recessed lights, but I do want to let that focal point of the hood be something that we celebrate.

So I’m going to grab this,[00:03:00] might do two or three, let’s do two.

And then how far away are we? So let’s, let’s do about two feet away. Since the hood’s pretty high up on the wall, we do want the lights to be maybe a little closer than what I’m showing here.

Alright, let’s keep going with these. Maybe it lines up with this counter.

You know what, I think I’m going to go ahead. This is close. I’m just going to put these a little closer, and then a little closer together.

And then, probably want to do a downlight here at the [00:04:00] sink. Lots of light there, continue to march along here.

Let’s do one more on this side, base cabinet. Okay. So at the Island, a lot of folks like to do some kind of a decorative lighting elements. Just need to make sure we have enough lights. So, let’s make some assumptions. Let’s give it a shot. So let’s put some over here. I’m thinking maybe these aren’t pendants, maybe they’re close to the ceiling and have a decorative appearance, but they’re not hanging down and like in your sight line if you’re standing around the islands and hosting a party and you can’t see across it’s weird.

So, I like to keep these lights closer to the ceiling, not really doing a pendant. It’s still something decorative. [00:05:00] Okay. So the alignments are getting there. It’s a little bit weird. Um, maybe we just do one here and then we scoot this over and then maybe These really read us their own thing.

I don’t want it to look like we’re trying to line up with that.

Step 3: Placeholder Lights

Okay. So, let’s see how much light we’re working with here. So let’s go back to the calculator and find some placeholders. So, let’s do an adjustable for that hood. 770 lumens.

[00:06:00] Then let’s go find a downlight. So that’s a thousand lumens.

Okay, let’s see where we’re at. So we go, so eight, so that’s 8,000 lumens [00:07:00] for the downlights plus seven 70, so that’s 8,007 70. Let’s go back over here, see where we’re at. Okay, so I need another 4,000 lumens. I’m not, going to be able to do that with these decorative lights. That’s probably asking a little bit too much. So why don’t we plan on adding in some under cabinet lights? We’ve got these shelves here, kind of at the windows. So let’s do a few of these.[00:08:00]

So that’s six of those. Let’s go find a, there we go. So let’s do a recessed cabinet light at 200 lumens. Okay.

There’s six of those at 200. So, so that puts us at 9, 970.

So that means that these [00:09:00] three decorative lights need to make up the difference.

So that leaves about 2, 900, roughly 3, 000 to go. So that means that each of these decorative lights need to be about a thousand lumens each, which is still fairly bright.

Step 4: Choose Decorative Lights

So this is the part where I would then meet with the interior designer and the homeowner or architect to get a sense for aesthetically, what do we want for these three decorative lights over the islands? It just helps us to narrow down our options since there’s so many lights out there to just be able to reign it in and understand that [00:10:00] we need it to be about a thousand lumens each.

 All right. So that’s going back to our placeholder lights on the projects I work on. I start with these. I’d say about 50 percent of the time we stay with the light that I selected often the electrician or the GC or the homeowner has some opinions about lighting or they have a favorite light from a previous job that they really want to use.

And so then we just switch over to that. Just keep in mind that as you are looking for lights out there, Okay. That’s you find lights that are dimmable since, not all LEDs are dimmable and that the light is UL listed for the country that you’re working in. And then finally, make sure that you have a light with a good color rendering score.

We want to target at least 90. That way we bring out the true color of the materials that we’re installing in our space.

Step 5: Ask for a Peer Review of Your Lighting Design

All right, that’s it for now. Give the calculator a shot. If you want me to double check your [00:11:00] work, I’m happy to do that. Send me a note through the website, and I will put a link to this in the YouTube description below.

Works Cited: Quality Kitchen Lighting​

Duncan, Steve. “Why Is It Important to Do a Lighting Calculation?” Lighting Design Insights. [LightingJUMP.com, https://www.lightingjump.com/how-many-lights-forest-vibe]. 

The author emphasizes the necessity of conducting lighting calculations to ensure effective lighting design in various spaces. He cites the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA) and the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) for their established footcandle targets that help determine appropriate lighting levels. Duncan also mentions the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Department of Energy’s publicly available footcandle targets, which he uses for residential projects.

He shares a personal anecdote about the complications that arise from inadequate lighting, stressing the importance of precise calculations to avoid costly adjustments and excessive spending. The lighting estimator featured on his webpage is designed to assist clients in achieving optimal lighting without overspending. 

References – Quality Residential Lighting Design​

• Duncan, Steve. “Why Is It Important to Do a Lighting Calculation?” Lighting Design Insights. .
• National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) in Residential Lighting.” NREL/TP-53467. 2012. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/53467.pdf.
• Illuminating Engineering Society. “Standards.” https://store.ies.org/individual-standards/?v=0b3b97fa6688.
• International Association of Lighting Designers. “About the IALD.” https://iald.org/IALD/IALD/About/About-

https://lightbycolor.com/how-much-living-room-light-video-tutorial/

How Much Light for a Dining Room? Video Tutorial