Kitchen lighting plans are typically designed for functionality and use of space.
Food preparation requires better than average visibility and color rendering. The condition of food itself is indicated by its firmness and its color, so it is always best to have your kitchen lighting plan designed with specification grade fixtures capable of differentiating both colors and shades of colors. The popular retail fluorescent lights that save energy so will probably not light your tomatoes quiet as effectively as other lamping options available through professional lighting design services like ILD. Getting assistance from a lighting consulting firm with experience in architectural theory can help you develop a better general lighting plan for your kitchen that involves alternatives to the panel overhead lights found in many homes. Energy saving recessed lights can be installed in configurations that pool the light around areas like the sink where people spend a great deal of time.
Special kitchen features like islands often present challenging spaces for the homeowner to light.
This may sound odd at face value. You think of an island as a simple surface that simply needs a bright to illuminate its surface. In actuality, this creates two problems in planning home lighting. If the surface of the island contains any shiny material, reflective glare will result. Light that is not directed at just the right angle will also cast unattractive shadows on the floor. To more effectively light such a structure, you may need special lower level pendant lights suspended at just the right height above the island surface. Custom home lighting planners with companies like ILD can help you choose from literally thousands of fixture styles ranging from traditional to highly contemporary. This way, a fixture that stands out prominently still blends into the general plan and decorum of your kitchen.
We also recommend that you have Lutron dimmer controls installed with your kitchen lighting as well. This will allow you to manipulate these various fixtures to create different layers of light and vary kitchen lighting levels for different plans and events. Dimmers are also a great energy saving tool and should always be considered as a better, more effective alternative to generic fluorescent lights in Houston home construction.
Undercabinet lights are routinely used to illuminate countertops for both accent and task lighting.
Undercabinet lighting is much more than a decorative element for a kitchen lighting floor plan. A large number of homes today tend to feature very ornate counter tops made from marble and granite. Fluorescent kitchen lights and pucks do not always work so well with these surfaces. Some fluorescents cannot be dimmed, so they do not work well with kitchen lighting plans configured with lighting control systems. Puck lights have their drawbacks too, chief of which tends to be the tendency to cast “white spots” on the surface below them. Houston Texas lighting planners will often advise you to replace these kitchen lights with dimmable linear strip lights made with built-in glare shields. This eliminates unattractive elements from your cabinet area, and it improves cost efficiency with a more controllable, low-key light source.
Contact us locally at 713-863-1133 or toll free at 800-863-1184 today to talk about your next project. Illuminations Lighting Design is a full service design build firm specializing in residential and commercial indoor lighting and outdoor lighting, electrical service and maintenance as well as home automation, home theaters, emergency generators, surge protection systems, phone systems and lighting control systems.
We are located in Houston Texas but provide photometric lighting design services in Austin TX, El Paso Texas, San Antonio TX, College Station Texas, Beaumont TX, Dallas Texas, Midland Tx and points beyond. Labels: Austin Texas Lighting, Beaumont Texas Lighting, Kitchen Lighting Plans, Planning Home Lighting Designs, Residential Lighting Houston Texas
What are some good free sources of ideas for home lighting plans?
You can get a wealth of free information from the Internet. If you feel like getting out from behind your computer and stepping out, try going to a demo home and looking around. Or, if this is not convenient, stop by a local bookstore or newsstand and look through interior design and home realty magazines. Because these publications are by nature artistic, they are ideal sources of inspiration for creative ideas of your own home lighting design. You do not have to spend any money to do this, either. Thumb through the magazine and take a few mental snapshots of what you see. Your own mind will modify and adapt these images and help form the beginnings of a plan.
Should I meet with my architect and my builder to work out a home lighting plan?
We recommend that you visit both. Your architect will most likely be planning your home lighting from a neutral, purely functional perspective. He or she will think along the lines of what works best in terms of general lighting, light regulatory compliance, and energy savings basics. However, if you talk to your architect about your personal preferences and lifestyle, this will go a long way toward personalizing your house lighting plans before they ever reach the builder’s desk.
Meeting with the builder, then, will help you plan for more advanced lighting design and controls should you ever want to have the installed in the future. The builder will be working with an electrical subcontractor who knows the ins and outs of wallbox dimming control technology and the basics of how different types of lights will be working in your home. The builder can provide you with invaluable insights into the technical details of your home lighting plan. Later on, after you move in and set up an entirely new life in your residence, you will probably want to either do some upgrades or consider advanced lighting control systems. This often happens to families who move into a house and over time begin to entertain more and more at home. Controls and automation sequences can make a residence rival a public venue when done by a professional skilled in his field. Knowing a little bit about the technical foundation of your home lighting system give you a foundation upon which you can build a more sophisticated, personalized system in the future.
This is also the time to make any last minute changes, or request specialty lighting such as art lights, cabinet lights, home security lighting or decorative display lighting fixtures. Your builder can arrange to have these things added to your home lighting plan, or call us to have them installed.
Should I install my own lights or hire a lighting design company?
You should always have a licensed electrician with credentials install your home lighting. Electricity is never anything to attempt a do-it-yourself stop gap solution with. Working with a firm like Illuminations Lighting Design gives you the dual benefit of licensed electricians who are also lighting designers. You can have your home lighting professionally wired and installed, and you can get advanced planning and decorative solutions developed by the same group of experts.
Where should I begin my search for a lighting designer?
For over 30 years now, ILD has worked with home construction companies and home remodeling firms to help the custom homeowner enjoy the most technologically sound and aesthetically pleasing home lighting control systems possible. Our staff has been cross trained in landscaping, art theory, interior design, and basic principles of architecture and is intended to function hand in glove with the general contract invoice any Houston home construction firm.
Call us at 800-863-1184 today to talk about your next project.Illuminations Lighting Design is a full service design build firm specializing in residential and commercial indoor lighting and outdoor lighting, electrical service and maintenance as well as home automation, home theaters, emergency generators, surge protection systems, phone systems and lighting control systems.
We are located in Houston Texas but provide lighting and design services in Austin TX, El Paso Texas, San Antonio TX, College Station Texas, Beaumont TX, Dallas Texas, Midland Tx and points beyond. Labels: Home Lighting Design Plans, Home Lighting Plans, House Lighting Plans, Planning Home Lighting Designs, Residential Lighting Houston Texas, Texas ASID Industry Partner
If the lighting in your project is important to you in function, aesthetics, or both, a lighting designer will be a valuable addition to your deign team. Lighting can actually be quite a complex science, needing to take into account issues such as footcandle level, glare, lamp life, maintenance, color rendition, source type, aiming angles, fixture selections, lighting controls, and wattage and voltage constraints. In our office we have a wall 20' long and 8' high where we house the fixture catalogs for all the major lighting manufacturers (and a large majority of minor ones!). It is our full time job to keep up with what the lighting world has to offer and to relay our expertise into what is in the best interest of the client. Because we are independent consultants, not affiliated with any certain lighting brands or showrooms, we are able to recommend lighting designs and specifications without bias.
Although architects' offices, interior designers, and even engineers are often layout electrical plans, their areas of responsibility are so broad that most do not have the ability to become truly educated about lighting technologies and design. Additionally many offices will hand off the lighting plan to a factory representative or showroom that has little knowledge of the client or their needs and will be doing the design and specification based on their own employment alliances and pricing structure. An architect or interior designer that recommends using a lighting consultant is not showing their weakness or lack of knowledge. Rather it's the other way around - they are recognizing the importance of the project at hand and knowing when to call in the experts so that the job is able to reach its fullest potential!
The professional consultants at Illuminations Lighting Design understand how color, texture, form and shadow can be molded creatively to produce the effect required. This can only be accomplished with the correct equipment and a complete knowledge of lamp types and lamp performance. An Illuminations signature design is a space where every lantern, sconce, chandelier, up light and down light ideally balances a room for its precise intent, including hard-to-light spaces.
For more information regarding our lighting design services please contact Tom Kretzschmar via email or by phone at 713-863-1133.
Labels: Austin Lighting Control Systems, Beaumont Fine Art Lighting, Commercial Lighting Designers, Houston Lighting Design Company, Lighting Design Company, Planning Home Lighting Designs
It's never really too early to contact a lighting designer, though it can be too late. Ideally a lighting designer should be brought in as a part of the team during Schematic Design. The client, architect and/or interior designer should have the basic layout and design of the project in plan so that the feel, needs, scope, and challenges of the project can be communicated throughout the design team. By being brought in before Design Development continues, the lighting designer will be able to make suggestions about the architecture that may affect or aid the lighting and will also be able to consult in designing architectural lighting details.
The earlier you bring a home lighting consultant in on your design meetings, the more integrated with the architecture the lighting is able to be. The later you bring the consultant in, the more the lighting system will look and act like an afterthought and the more the design will be compromised. This also holds true with outdoor landscape lighting design.
For more information regarding LIGHTING DESIGN SERVICES please contact TOM KRETZSCHMAR at 713-863-1133 or toll free at 800-863-1184.
Labels: Architectural Lighting Houston Texas, Commercial Lighting Designers, Home and Garden Landscape Lighting, Houston Lighting Design Company, Planning Home Lighting Designs
