Room by Room
For the first five years in this cottage, I cooked under a fluorescent panel light that had been installed sometime in the late 1990s and had been contributing to kitchen misery ever since. It was bright in the way that only a fluorescent panel can be bright — complete, shadowless, slightly green. Food looked unappetizing in it. I looked unappetizing in it.
Replacing it was the kitchen project I put off longest because the ceiling wiring seemed complicated. It turned out to be a half-day job for an electrician, and one of the best decisions we've made in this house. Two kitchen pendant lights over the island, hung at 32 inches above the counter surface, changed the entire character of the kitchen.
I chose a simple style: clear glass globe pendants with aged brass fittings. Small enough not to dominate the relatively modest island. The clear glass lets the filament-style 2700K bulb show through, which gives the kitchen that warm-restaurant quality I'd only ever seen in other people's homes in design magazines.
The undercabinet LED strip lights handle actual task lighting — chopping, reading recipes, checking the color of a sear. The pendants do atmosphere. On their separate circuit with a dimmer, they stay at about 40 percent while I cook and drop lower for dinner. The kitchen now has two modes, and both of them feel good to be in.
I cook more since the lighting changed. I don't fully understand the psychology of it, but there's something about a well-lit space — warmly, beautifully lit, not clinically lit — that invites presence. I linger in the kitchen now. I cook things that take time. The room finally feels like it deserves the attention.