Lighting Over a Kitchen Island.

[minnie56]

We have Pendant lights over our island...now that being said our Island is 12ft long..but I loved these particular lights and thought they might be a little long so my husband cut them down about 4 inches and they are perfect!!!!

I also have many recessed lights including 2 over the lower level of the Island where my sink is..

I wouldn't want anything else over my Island.

 

[Gigi22]

To the OP--I know exactly where you are coming from. Just had a partial redo of my circa mid-80s reno'ed kitchen. The lighting required a major upgrade, because my kitchen has limited natural light and I always felt I was cooking in the Batcave.
At the advice of my contractor we went for a layered lighting plan. There are: three recessed lights over my sink; six recessed halogen pot lights in the kitchen ceiling; a fluorescent light (the old fixture) over the desk in the kitchen; and, a three light pendant over my dogleg shaped peninsula. I selected the pendant light myself--it took hours in part because of the peninsula shape and partly because I desperately wanted to have a fixture that used non-halogen lightbulbs, but it was so worth it! My contractor adjusted the length of the pendants so that they are high enough off the counter surface.
You might want to look at some major decorating websites (Home and Garden, Martha Stewart, etc.) and check what they suggest for kitchen lighting. I also found that touring kitchen stores that had full kitchen displays installed helped my visualize what I wanted.

 

[MAKmom]

After almost a year of planning to move, we have decided to stay here so we will be redoing our 1985 kitchen. I am finalizing plans and rather than the pennisula that we have currently, we will be having an island. I thought that i wanted two pendant lights. Then I considered one light with three lights attached meant for over an island. The kitchen designer said it is all personal choice of course, but he prefers nothing over the island except recess lights because the pendants hang low and are distracting. Any thoughts?

I did a 8' x 5' island & only did the recessed lighting. I think pendants get in the way unless you are always sitting down at the island. We use it to entertain. It will also make the room appear larger if you only do the recessed lighting IMO

 

[MAKmom]

whats the difference between a pennisula and an island?? Also, I've seen very few homes that have an island without a hanging light fixture over it, unless it's a comtemporary styled home. How low is he planning on hanging
the pendant lights??

I have a chandelier over mine, and I love it.

The word is the same as an area of land ....an island is free on 4 sides a pennisula is only free of 3 sides.

 

[DawnCt1]

I did a 8' x 5' island & only did the recessed lighting. I think pendants get in the way unless you are always sitting down at the island. We use it to entertain. It will also make the room appear larger if you only do the recessed lighting IMO

If you include the dining area of the kitchen, it is a fairly large kitchen, but because of the division between the work area and the dining area, I do need the work area to look larger, so you have a great point. I love the idea of being sure that the two recessed lights are centered in such a way over the island, that I could easily convert them to pendants if I want to see what they look like, and if I don't like them, I can take them down and stick with the recessed lights. I will also have under cabinet lights, etc as well. Right now I have mid 80's TRACK LIGHTING (yuck). This reno will be a huge change. I will take before, during and after pictures.

 

[K and K's Mommy]

Last summer we gutted and totally redid our kitchen! We have a big island with two pendants. They don't get in the way at all, but our island is fairly big.

One thing we did was make pendants out of cardboard. With our large island, I didn't want our pendants to look too small. So, we cut the size out of cardboard, hung them from string, and stuck them on the ceiling. We also did this for our chandelier over the table.

Have fun! I washed dishes in the bathtub for three months!

 

[DawnCt1]

Last summer we gutted and totally redid our kitchen! We have a big island with two pendants. They don't get in the way at all, but our island is fairly big.

One thing we did was make pendants out of cardboard. With our large island, I didn't want our pendants to look too small. So, we cut the size out of cardboard, hung them from string, and stuck them on the ceiling. We also did this for our chandelier over the table.

Have fun! I washed dishes in the bathtub for three months!

Oh no!!!! I am also having the laundry room, half bath, closets, etc off of the kitchen retiled. I am keeping my hard wood floors. I have wall paper in my SMALL laundry room. I think it is small because I have too much stuff in it. I think I will reorganize that over the next week or so and start stripping the wall paper in it. It is one of my two remaining rooms with wallpaper.
I am not going to buy canned goods starting NOW. Give me your best kitchen renovation survival tips please.

 

[K and K's Mommy]

Survival tips -

Stay out of the house as much as possible!
We set up a temporary kitchen in the dining room. We had a microwave, toaster, panini press, crock pot, and small (think dorm like) refrigerator. We also had a full size refrigerator in the garage. The microwave ended up going in the garage because it took up too much room.

We grilled a lot and used the panini press a lot. I didn't end up using the crock pot as much as I thought I would because clean up wasn't fun. We took the dishes up the stairs to the kids' bathroom. The kids ended up using our bathroom so I didn't have to clean the bath tub after every meal.

I was against buying a small refrigerator, but it was great to have drinks and yogurts easily accessible. I got tired of always going outside to the garage (because I couldn't go through the kitchen) to get to the refrigerator. Thank goodness it was during the summer!

I haven't looked at it since, but I spent a lot of time on the Kitchen forum of Gardenweb. They are somewhat fanatics, but I am guessing they would think the same of us and Disney!

 

[jen0610]

We haven't done this, but our friends did and these are 2 of the big ones she mentioned as time and hassel relievers. They did theirs over the summer.

They only used paper plates, plastic cups and forks. They are big campers, so they just looked at it as we do this when we camp and have limited space for doing dishes, might as well do the same thing with this. Like K&K, they had little ones and didn't want to be carting a bunch of stuff upstiars to wash, then back downstairs.

They grilled out everything they could. Instead of boiling corn on the cob, they grilled it. They got a gridle that would fit the grill and they did eggs and bacon, grilled cheese's, pancakes.

 

[daughtersrus]

Looks like I'm out of the norm here. I have one light with three shades(almost like one you'd hang over a pool table) over my island. I love it and no one has ever hit their head on it.