Recommend suitable ceiling lights for large open plan kitchen, please

MrsMc

I'd really appreciate some expert opinions on which type of overhead lighting would work best in a large open plan kitchen, please.

The room's 10.5m long x 5.5m wide with one wall comprising of 9m of glass panels. It's south facing so will get plenty of daylight.

The room is "divided" into 3 distinct areas by the layout of the furniture. The electrician has installed recessed lights (fire-rated GU10s) in the kitchen area so that area's sorted. However, I need to find something suitable for the "dining" & "seated/TV" areas. Each lighting store I've visited have highly recommended that I install fluorescent fittings as they offer the best light and energy efficiency.

I don't know whether it's my age or what but the idea of fluorescent light just brings back awful memories of flickering naff looking tubes stuck up on the ceiling.

Are there any other alternatives open to me? All opinions welcome.

Thanks

M cebee

i've done a few jobs lately-did the whole lot in fire-rated gu10

worked out well with leds

indie armada

as far as flouresent lighting goes there are a lot of modern fittings you could use. flouresent lighting these days mostly use electronic high frequency gear so no starters or flickering bulbs.
most of the fittings your used to seeing in offices and schools ect are 4/5 foot t8 fittings with cat 2 or prismatic diffusers. they are ugly and are there just serve a purpose. however there are fittings that i would generally call arcitectural lighting that mostly use t5 lamps. the much thinner t5 lamp can fit into housings the t8 cant making it easier to make them more aestheicly pleasing. one of the major manufactors of flouresent lighting is Thorn, allthough they pulled out of this country last year their stuff can still be got trough wholesalers.

dunner515

Just use downlighter's ya can't go wrong there;)

brushedmoss

I personally put in about 20 GU10 CFL's into my kitchen which is open to the dining room, and about the same size as yours.

The Kitchen is zoned into 3 useful areas, and I put in quite a lot of CFL's as they are really not that bright (certainly for a kitchen with black counter top).

You can get quite a range of GU10 CFL's, I recently swapped some of my original 9W with 12W and it's really brightened the place up.

Between different brands, my experience has varied with some coming to 100% brightness in < 3 seconds, and others getting to 50% brightness in 3 seconds and 100% in 10 seconds. There is quite a color difference between them even though the the color temperature is rated the same, some have diffusers too which makes a difference.

For the Dining area, we went with traditional candle type bulbs because we wanted a Dimmer and also we didn't want spots as we didn't think it suited a dining area, and the fitting we chose used candle bulbs.

I have CFL GU10's that work on a Dimmer, but you have to turn them on at 100% for a few minutes before dimming them, and sometimes they strobe when dimmed.

I tried LED's but found they were a very focussed light and a very cool / blue color , hence went with CFL's.

Nryan82

Hi mrsmc

I no its two years since u asked your question but I'd love to know how it turned out for you?. I'd love to see a picture of it too if possible as I'm also wondering about lighting for my new build and my measurements are the very same as yours with large panel glass to the back. Can I ask you, do u have sufficient room for your kitchen,dinning, sitting room in the open plan?...as mine isn't built yet I'm curious as to know will it be big enough?..thanks.:)