Lighting "design"?

[Benway]

Hi.

Part way through an extension that will create a large kitchen/diner/family room. Now at a stage to start thinking about lighting and it's all a little confusing. I think I need a lighting designer, if there is s such a thing. Basic plan below.

Area in grey is the room area.
Green is kitchen units/islnd
Yellow is roof lanters
Red is proposed switch locations, top one for outside/garden lighting.

There are two main routes into the room so two way switching is a must. I like the idea of scene lighting and also maybe smart/wifi switching. Not all areas will be used at once so zoned lighting would be nice. Loads of pointless blingy LED's as well if I can install them without the wife noticing!



Build thread is here. Which may give you a better idea of the space.

Ideas welcome! Cheers.

 

[mfarrow]

Lighting designers are expensive (Kevin McCloud is one) and don't get out of bed for less than £2000.

The one I know though (been friends with him since we were 12) basically said don't go for patterns of spotlights and point the lights where you want them (doorways, tables etc). Less can be more!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Pendant lights are nice over tables where you eat.

For functional lighting in a kitchen large format recessed lights (200+mm-ish diameter, or LED panels) are good. IMO the hotel-foyer idea of an array of small torches sunk into the ceiling is madness.

LED tape can be excellent under wall cabinets to light worksurfaces, but use some form of mechanical fixing (e.g. those aluminium profile strips) rather than relying on glue.

If you use dimmable RGBW you'll have the option of decorative use when you don't need functional. You'll probably be able to find controllers which will also flash them on and off, cycle through colours etc, if you want to drive everyone to distraction.

LED strips set into grooves on the underside of worktop overhangs.

LED strips run around the inside of the roof lanterns.

Avoid using wallwarts to power anything, as then you'll need to find somewhere to have sockets on a lighting circuit.

Don't leave it too long to decide, as placement of power supplies and controllers will need to be known, and wall controls like these for RGBW lights don't go in the mains wiring

Consider carefully the issues of reliability and security if you go down the wi-fi switching route.

 

[Seb101]

Where will the dining table go? What will be in the space to the right of the kitchen island?

It is very personal choice and the reason a designer is so expensive is because they will go through many many options and styles with you so they can zero in on your preference. They don't do one design and say 'here you go' they do lots until you like what you see.

You have limited ceiling space due to the roof light boxes, so my personal preference in a space like this is:
1. Uplighters on as many walls as possible (be caredful of where you want to put tall furniture such as bookcases). Soft uplighters provide a great level of 'ambiance' lighting which give the room a base level of lighting. Don't go for anything too fancy, they are supposed to blend into the background, not be a feature.

2. Where you can't put uplighters, consider a table/floor lamp for the same purpose - you might want to install 5Amp lighting sockets in these locations so you can have them centrally switched.
3. If you can, place a pendant lamp, or multiple pendants above the dining table (depending on length) - it is nice to be able to fully illuminate the table without having to blind guests or over-light the rest of the room.

4. Again pendants, or pendant sets for above the kitchen island, this is a very common.

5. I would be tempted to install spot-downlighters in the kitchen area, on another seperate circuit, possibly dimmable, to provide flood lighting in this area when needed. It's important to remember the kitchen is a utility area and you need a good level of light for cooking, cleaning etc - and that part of the room will be darkest due to window placement. Red Xs

6. Under cabinet lights in the kitchen will help too.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I would be tempted to suggest that 7 lights in that area is an admission that each light is pretty poor at lighting up the space.

 

[Seb101]

I would be tempted to suggest that 7 lights in that area is an admission that each light is pretty poor at lighting up the space.

Everytime a spotlight is mentioned.... Sometimes it is more about the overall lighting effect, rather than the efficiency of the source. Yes you could probably do that whole area with a single, clear 100W equivalent GLS bulb dangling on a bit of flex, but it wouldn't look as nice.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I would be tempted to suggest that people who think that the only alternative to lots of little spotlights is a clear GLS bulb dangling on a bit of flex (or vice-versa) probably shouldn't get involved in lighting design.

 

[garyo]

I'm with B-a-S, and also think that a strip of LED's is an admission that LEDs are rubbish at lighting, because you need a strip of 200 of them to light anything up!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Do you also have a problem with a strip of phosphorescent glass?

 

[Seb101]

There is a free tool called SweetHome3D which will allow you to do some fairly advanced lighting design rendering. It takes a bit of work to get up and running, as the detailed ray-tracing to get proper lighting is not a defualt feature of the app and requires some open source tools, but it can produce really good results even with the standard tools.

http://www.sweethome3d.com/

http://www.sweethome3d.com/blog/2010/04/28/advanced_rendering_plug_in.html

Edit to add.. Don't spend any money on buying the furniture packs off SweetHome3d - you can use any model in the Trimble 3D Warehouse https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/search/?q=dining table

Just export as 'collada' file and it will import into SweetHome3D.

 

[JohnW2]

Everytime a spotlight is mentioned....

I think one of the problems is that so many people still call them 'spotlights'. In the earliest days of these 'little torches in ceilings' (as they then were), they were essentially designed to be spotlights, and the only bulbs/lamps available had very narrow beam angles. however, one can now get them with beam angles up to 135°, perhaps even wider, and to call those 'spotlights' is not only clearly inaccurate, but also helps to perpetuate the belief that downlighters can only produce 'tiny spots of light'.

Kind Regards, John

 

[Seb101]

And of course... Pinterest makes a great cheap substitute for a real designer
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/1970393567621246/

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Aren't Trimble the people Google flogged SketchUp off to?

 

[Seb101]

Aren't Trimble the people Google flogged SketchUp off to?

The very same.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

How are they doing with it?

I've held off upgrading from SU v 8 for fear of finding that they started making the free version less capable.