General Indirect Light. Recessed lighting is a great way to provide your kitchen with neat general lighting. It is a modern alternative to general overhead kitchen lighting that is much more efficient and doesn’t involve any annoying dangling cords, lightbulbs or lampshades. Recessed light fixtures, bulbs and wiriting are all installed inside the ceiling and turned on through a switch. They are a wonderful way to add indirect, discreet general light to your kitchen.

Direct Light. Pendant lights are one of my favorite room decorating ideas. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, they literally bring light down from the ceiling to just about head level. They can also be used to spotlight a specific area like around the stove over a kitchen island. It might be best to combine pendant lights with general overhead kitchen lighting so that you can illuminate the space in general while allowing specific areas to be highlighted. What is the best thing about pendant light? The fixtures come in gorgeous designs!

Targeted Lighting. A common problem with lighting in the kitchen is that it might not be where you need it. Maybe you have a lot of light over the sink, but none near the stove. A lot of kitchen have dark patches which can be very annoying when trying to prepare food or clean properly. If you are having trouble seeing properly while chopping veggies, try placing lights under your cabinets. Low-voltage xenon bulbs give off beautiful golden light and will glow under your cabinets. Although they are a bit warmer than fluorescent lights, they are cooler than halogen and incandescent bulbs. Xenon light strips can be set to high or low and have removable light covers for easy cleaning.

Hidden Spaces. It is true that most people won’t go looking through your cabinets, but keeping them neat and organized will help you find things easier and feel better about your kitchen in general. That’s why one of my favorite kitchen lighting ideas is putting lights inside your cupboards! Many people have dark cupboards in their kitchen that gets messy and cluttered because it’s impossible to properly see things in it- especially all the way to the back. A solution to this problem is so simple. For only a few dollars you can purchase a battery-operated light that can be stuck onto a wall. This way you don’t even have to install a new light fixure or deal with wires. Just don’t forget to turn it off when you close the cupboard to avoid killing the batteries!

These are just a few kitchen lighting ideas.  Did you implement any creative lighting solutions in your kitchen?

Here are 8 kitchen decorating tips to get you started:

Lovely Kitchen Decor

Tip 1: Start with the kitchen cabinets

Rather than spending a fortune on replacing old cabinets, there may be an opportunity to salvage them and give them a whole new look. You can achieve this by sanding down the existing layer of paint and going for a whole new color. Make sure you wipe the cabinets clean before sanding. Here is a clear guide on how to repaint your cabinets.

When selecting a color, keep in mind the entire color scheme of your kitchen. If you have many stainless steel appliances, the trend has been moving away from lighter pale color schemes to darker, more saturated cabinet colors.

Tip 2: Upgrade your cabinet knobs

Changing the knobs on your cabinets is an easy and very effective way to upgrade your cabinets without replacing them. There are tons of sites online that allow you to browse through thousands of different shapes and sizes, ranging from ultra modern to country in a variety of metal or wooden finishes.

Tip 3: Paint the walls

Here is where you have an opportunity to be creative in a subtle way. Since there isn’t as much wall space as in other rooms, you can use the area available for painting to produce creative color combination that work to soften the kichen as well as bring out the cabinet colors. It is generally recommended to take a very close look at the color base of the cabinet color you chose and find a color for the walls in the same paint family. Don’t forget to repaint your trim around the windows and door frames. Here is a wonderful article with some great color combination ideas.

Tip 4: Replace your old curtains

Although a relatively simple step, replacing your current kitchen curtains with new ones can bring new life into your kitchen. There are many different curtain styles and textures specifically designed for kitchens which can do wonders for complimenting your new cabinet and wall colors.

Tip 5: Lighting

Kitchen lighting is an area of decor where you can really be creative. A popular trend is to have pendant lighting over your kitchen island, but you can add in track lighting, chandeliers and any number of lighting solutions depending on the look you’re going for. The style of lighting you’re going for should really be thought through since it can make a very powerful decor statement on its own, whether by its design or the type of light it produces.

Elegant kitchen design

Tip 6: Fun with Shelving

One little tip for shelving is to not be afraid of having open shelves in the kitchen. Placed strategically, sometimes having items exposed can automatically create decor accents. Don’t be afraid to experiment, especially if you’re used to very traditional cabinetry.

Tip 7: Trendy kitchen stools

Thanks to stores such as Ikea, there is an incredibly large supply out there of kitchen stools to match any color, style, or trend. If you have many steel appliances in your kitchen, you can try for bar stools that combine a bit of metal with synthetic leather to give a modern yet homey look.

Tip 8: New accessories

Little decor accents are a great way to bring a kitchen to life. Look into options such as adding a trendy wine rack, country style vases with beautiful flowers, small plants, old, warm-colored paintings, new spice holders, or pottery. These items can be picked up either second hand or from home decor stores and can be wonderful color accents. The goal is to use these items wisely; having too many accessories will only create clutter rather than adding life to the kitchen decor.

Kitchen Accents

Lets start with the classics. Here is a lovely country kitchen idea. Notice the use of wood and the coloring of the cabinets and the floor. The country kitchen design itself is not fancy, yet by being simple and orderly the small addition of yellow and green coloring here and there (such as the flowers and vase) enhances the overall look and feel without breaking your budget. This kitchen creates a warm and homey country feel without going overboard.

Country Kitchen

In a somewhat similar vein as the country kitchen, Tuscan kitchen designs have become very popular. After doing some research and checking, it seems that most modern Tuscan kitchens are not quite in line with the original idea which was intended to create a beautiful rustic feel through humble means (not spending thousands of dollars on expensive vases). Architecture seems to be the main element that defines true Tuscan design (click here for a nice short article on the subject), yet for those of us who are looking to improvise, then dark, earthy colored, simple furniture balanced by natural lighting in addition to pottery, knickknacks and tapestries will do. The Tuscan style kitchen featured here does exactly the kind of improvising we are talking about: notice the pottery on top of the cabinets. The small addition of the pottery helped turn an average kitchen into something a little more exotic.

Moving on, we have another beautiful kitchen based on a modern contemporary design. The shapes of the cabinets are very plain and smooth, and the coloring is less ‘warm’ in the traditional sense. You can see here the use of a bit of purple and blue, which is meant to contrast with the cream and white cabinets while bringing out the coloring of the floor. The small kitchen table is also thin with a combination of the use of glass and metal. Rather than wood, the chairs are plastic which works very nicely to balance the wooden floor to create a modern feel without leaving you completely cold.

Modern Kitchen

For those of us having to deal with smaller homes or apartments, then here is a great small kitchen design that successfully combines the element of practicality with warmth and modernity. Excellent use of shelving, counter, and cabinet space add tremendously to this small kitchen.

Small Kitchen

Lastly we have two differently themed kitchens that both make use of color as a primary decorating element. The white kitchen has a bit of a French decorating flavor to it. The use of white allows all the small additional small decorating accessories to really stand out in contrast without being dominant, which gives the overall kitchen a very clean, pristine feel. The second kitchen blatantly makes full use of rich, warm, and bright colors to give it a very fun and active atmosphere. Both uses of color help set the emotional tone of kitchen to create an interesting decorating style.

Check back with us at room decorating ideas for more kitchen decorating ideas.