Creating the Ultimate Kitchen Lighting Setup 

🛠Charlie DIYte Amazon Tool Store amzn.to/3fcLnY4 - all my tried, tested and much loved DIY tools. ☕Patreon membership bit.ly/3xuQ3zb - includes Discord access. ☕Buy Me a Coffee bit.ly/3xuQ3zb - to help support my Channel - also use it for membership a bit like Patreon. 👚Charlie DIYte Official Merch Store charlie-diyte.myspreadshop.co.uk/ - all new range of professionally designed merch.

It’s funny isn’t it how people who do things properly, perfectly, accurately with attention to detail have to almost apologetically self-diagnose with OCD. Were all great artists OCD because they painted perfectly? No. It’s normal and healthy to obsess over things you love. So be like Charlie and cherish your fastidiousness. That’s how you end up with a beautiful kitchen with perfect lighting as in this video.

I’m Charlie-famous! Ridiculously chuffed for mentioning my post, Charlie. I’d add that, as well as the black inner on the downlighters which has massively reduced glare, also look at ones which come with a black baffle - a honeycomb pattern of mesh - to sit beneath the bulb. In my hallway where I forgot to fit dimmers, the honeycomb mesh thingy really softened the light from the utilitarian downlighters I inherited from the previous owners. Your kitchen looks amazing, Charlie. Really beautiful job.

Thanks for the shout out - glad to see it worked out well, although I knew it would!

Thanks Charlie, I would have loved this video when I was doing my kitchen last year. I asked the electrician about lighting design but he barely offered anything useful. And I didn't find many good youtube vids out there. And I can't believe phos just gave you a small discount. With 400k subs they should be biting your arm off and paying for the entire installation just to get a mention.

Great results and glad you spoke to Guy. I did the same year's ago and it opened my eyes into lighting design. The lights I installed were also removed when I moved house, as they were far too good to leave for the new owners and are being installed in my new place. Having a few extras is vital as I had a few die after 5 years of constant on/off use (in a utility).

My kitchen had under cupboard lighting for the worktop but the switch was in the awkwardly in the cupboard. I installed some IR sensors and fixed them up hidden at the back. One of the simplest and my favourite mods in the house. It means a quick wave to turn on and no dirty fingers on the switches as you'll often have dirty hands when you need the light. One things to note, steam can set them off, so set them away from the hob/kettle.

Very good. I just fitted two under cabinet lamps and they have transformed the kitcken. Wish I'd done this years ago. Didn't know there was a magic '300mm' but I opted for half the cabinet depth as it illuminated the counter top well and evenly. Hardest bit was chasing the wiring within voids. Really like the LED strips you fitted and they complement the pendants. Lighting has really changed. Not that long ago I had a different kitchen with 14 x 50W GU lights. You never needed the heating on in that room, but it was pricey just to illuminate!

Excellent video. Love the results you’ve achieved with this scheme, Charlie, and of course it’s highly informative. Thanks for sharing, as always.

That looks fantastic! One tip I would offer is to buy a few spares of any lights you are using in multiples if you can. Even the best down lights ocassionally fail prematurely and it can be hard to find the same model of light a few years down the track as they often go out of production. Ask me how I know!!

Nicely done Charlie. I work for PHOS in the north, and the story of our business is a great story to tell.

Thanks for another great video with all the details and also the mistakes! That's how problems get solved lol! We are about to put in the lights for our house and I will keep these tips in mind for exact placement :)

Looks amazin! really great job

Looks fantastic Charlie! When I did my under counter LEDs on my new kitchen I used COB CCT LED strip, which lets you adjust the colour temperature by a cheap and cheerful LED driver from amazon. This lets you have a blue white mode for when you're working and a yellow white for relaxing... in reality we never change it, haha!. Also since it was basically a retrofit and not hard wired in by a sparkie I used Ikea remote sockets (TRÅDFRI) to power them, and the above cabinet unicorn puke RGBIC, this gives you a little switch which is magnetic so is stuck to the side of the fridge. A good option for retrofitting and no need for a sparkie. You can add a hub to get some smart functionality with the Ikea stuff, but I don't need any of that.

Love the under cupboard lights. All of them are great. 😊

Glad to see im on the right track with my lighting design, cheers for the video

Brilliant info!

Hadn't ever thought about this in such detail so very useful thanks!

Love the way you did the recessed under cabinet LED strips. Some German kitchen brands offer this as an option, but I haven’t yet seen it on UK ones.

Looks great Charlie. Hope you start feeling better soon!

Very well thought through and designed. I did a light retrofit using smart home and HomeAssistant. I converted two pendants to spotlights and then added 3 pendants above the dining table, all on the same circuit. I then used IKEA's smart bulbs with colour temp control. So now I can control groups of lights as if they were on different circuits and I have cool, high Kelvin lights in the day, and warm lights in the evening. To keep the light switches functional I had to do something very convoluted.

Glad you are pleased with all of your hard work Charlie, it's looking great! Love the green kitchen units. I'm surprised you don't have a dustcatcher when drilling downlights.. but then i suppose it's also having space to store everything! Tool space is really at a premium for me nowadays

I would love to see all the kitchen lighting made Smart. Something I have thought about doing in my own home a lot since moving in two years ago but never got started. By the way Great Video!

Great video with a lot of tips. I would recommend a smart lighting controller. Our kitchen has 6 circuits and a table lamp and having multiple switch points would be a nightmare to setup and maintain. Instead we have Lutron RA2 controllers on each circuit and used their Pico remotes wherever we need them. Instead of controlling the independent circuits, you switch scenes depending on your purpose. So you van have a general turn everything on scene plus another to set the mood for dining or a party. It is retrofitable on regular UK lighting circuits so we have added this across most of our lights in the house. It does have smart integrations and a really simple to use app but you don’t need it for day to day use and the many technophobe guests to our house have no issue turning lights on and off. One of the best smart features for me is turning lights off automatically that my teenage kids like to leave on, some to a set schedule others for a specified time after they were switched on. Another cool feature is the smart home away which I turn on when going on holiday and it replays the past two weeks of lighting to make the house look more occupied when we are away. This was all easily setup on the app. Lurton isn’t cheap but they have a wireless system that just works. Some of the cheaper systems work most of the time and will need the occasional tinkering to keep it working. My RA2 system has worked faultlessly even though I had no prior experience installing it. There are professional installers who fit it for you but you can get the modules yourself and get your own competent person to install and program the system yourself.

Thanks Charlie, and good to hear from you again ! It's always interesting to hear what you have to say, as despite your wealth of hard won experience, you still speak very much as a home-owner/DIYer which keeps you relatable. Our kitchen lights are shocking - a 3way spot & 4 way spot-bar (Led GU10s) centred in the middle of an 18x11 ft room, wherever you stand you are casting a hard shadow and thus have poor light to work by. I've been puzzling over what to do about it so this gives me some more ideas so thank you. I love those LED strip-light connectors btw. You're sounding a bit rough mate, hope you're feeling better soon.

This is perfectly timed - we're just working on details like this for our refurb and the current plan has the electricians grid. I've been looking at this and thinking "I don't like it" but didn't know how to approach it.

This brings me back to a whole house renovation in 2007. Smart homes and lighting were just taking off and I wanted to incorporate that into the design as much as I could. I invested into a 24 channel iLight system and planned all the circuits myself. I got about 70% of it right which left me frustrated that it didn't really live up to the cost and expectation. I bought a LED panel for the kitchen that controlled all the channels and scenes around the house but it just wasn't programmed that well and was very confusing for people visiting. I made some mods to the actual lights. Over the Island did the usual 6 spots and around the perimeter of the kitchen/diner (11x5m) were 22 more spots. I replaced the 6 island spots with 3 pendants and removed about a dozen more spots...huge improvment. Biggest improvement was finding an iLight specialist that re-programmed the whole system including phone app and only now do I feel it was worth the investment. Keep up the good work.

Missed the opportunity to put in 5amp sockets around the perimeter or where there are side tables I use them more than the downlights 😅. Definitely look at trying to put in a lutron RA2 system, it’s app and uses wireless switches. Then you could incorporate the under pelmet lights into the light switch positions it also allows you to scene control the whole area from one button.

Excellent job

Good to see the "Skil" brand 👍

Great vid and some great info as ever. Having replaced our kitchen and conveyed to open plan last year I spent quite a bit of time thinking about lighting circuits. I wish I had thought about the lamp over the edge of the worktop. Because we retained the classic grid (only 4 lamps) by luck rather than judgement it does line up over the worktop. I may just move the others to do this despite the pain. I went with the Wi-Fi Quinetic from TLC so gives a manual (hold to dim) switch but also smart features. I expect there are nicer systems out there in terms of smart features but works well for us so far.

So many thoughts! I agonised over my kitchen light 15 years ago now, but you've reached mostly the same conclusions. Denise was right. Things I learned: A laser level is one of the great unsung heroes of a tool bag. I use mine often - a great OCD enabler. 🙂 Daylight colour temp and under cupboard lighting are essential, and I like your solution of cutting the base. Install more lights and power points than you think you will ever need - if it's too bright (it won't be) you can always dim, but you can't make more light. We included automation, which can bring up certain lights according to the ambient light levels and time of day as you enter the area. ie 3am - come up to just 10%. Light source - you should never be able to see it - things should just be illuminated, kinda like your Velux area (good idea there). For this reason I recommend finding a different light source for your three pendants to remove the harshness. Under-bench LED strips are a bit tacky - I wouldn't do it. It is everywhere! I hid my power points - both in the back of hutch areas where the toaster, kettle, food processors are, and behind drawer fronts so that cables are not dragging across counter tops and getting in the way and covered in food prep - first class functionality and very tidy because there's none on the walls. Love your work - always learn something new from you.

I was advised by a professional designer along similar lines to your electrician, I chose to ignore based on where I needed the light to be and the mood needed. For bedrooms I avoided the ‘central’ light and ensured that when we lay in bed the lights didn’t create glare. So I’m feeling vindicated by your video. We moved 3 months ago and it looks as though the previous owner installed lighting along similar lines to myself. I must confess the grid style lighting panels I have inherited are a bit crass but they do divide the lights up very neatly. Great vid thank you Charlie. Regards Mike

Solid plan. Excellent execution ! Looks wonderful. Job well done

Hi Charlie. Long time subscriber here. I thoroughly appreciate everything you do in making the time to put these videos out. No doubt it is an added stress to the house refurb workload and I commend you for it. However, I do miss those videos where you seemed more laid back and perhaps had a bit more time on your hands!! Recent videos seem a bit rushed and chop back and fore and I get why it's happening because you feel you need to push out material to viewers like me. I know I'll get hounded for this so to reiterate, I am not going to stop viewing and really appreciate what you do. I just thought I would give you my opinion and as with every opinion you are free to completely ignore it!!! Hope you are well and looking forward to the next video.

Thanks for this. I agree with avoiding smart lights for the Kitchen, think it's overkill. Our house has lighting which was clearly designed by a pro (projector bulbs, clever placements etc) but it dates to the 80s! It's well done but is in urgent need of an update. It literally uses the kind of specialist bulbs they use in museums for lighting up exhibits (last owner was an antiques nerd) . So this gives me good ideas for replacement.

👍👍👍. Thank you

If worried about switches and smart apps/automation, you could use deeper back boxes when doing 1st fix, and fit smart relays - like Shelly relays. Then you can use switches both physically and via app or automation and everything stays in sync (which is how it always should be).

Another great video Charlie, as someone who is planning a kitchen redesign I found it really useful. I know I'm being lazy but can you please include links to the materials and equipment you use as it saves hours on googling when you don't really know what you are looking for. Also with Amazon, I believe you can set up affiliate links to earn a "couple of bob" from linked purchases. Also, my wife just loves the pantry cupboard - where did you get it from?

So glad my husband sent me this, not because I have a clue about any of the tech stuff, but because we have just instructed a contractor to build an extension. We’re having a Tom Howley kitchen, usual open planning living and I’m desperate to get the lighting right as we can’t do this twice ££££🙄 Where do I go for a lighting designer please or does Pho(??) offer that to people who buy their products? Thanks so much!

Hi Charlie Are the led strips mains or low voltage Off transformer?? Great video as always full of tips information for us diy ers

Do one for your bathroom lights please

I get the simplicity of the manual switches, but for me, I'm in the process of ripping all that out and making it smart, controlled by Home Assistant. I walk into the bathroom, the presence sensor knows I'm there and will turn the lights on based on various variables... if it's between midnight and 7am, it'll turn them on but on a very dim setting... after 7am and it'll turn the lights on only if the lux sensor is below a certain level.... depending on that lux level, it'll vary the intensity of the lighting! It also allows for truely bespoke LED lighting control.... For example I have an led strip that starts vertically on the upper part of the wall, heads across the ceiling, before splitting in two directions... the LEDs are individually addressable and so it's been possible to turn the LEDs on one after another, lighting a path, and then when the split happens, it extends equally along both simultaneously... looks really cool! ;-) .... wasn't hard to learn to do and sooooo cheap!!!! £6 ESP32 board, £20 strip of addressable LEDS (5m), in-plaster LED profile £50.... then making good with a bag of plaster (£10).... obviously the price increases drastically due to labour if you don't install the profiles yourself / replaster! But if it's happening at a time that you're remodelling anyway, then those plastering costs would be spent anyway.

Looks great. The only difference I have made to my kitchen LED strip light is that I connected them to motion sensors. So at night going out to get a drink of water, the sensor automatically turns on the LED strip lights. Its gentle glow does not wake us up and it turns on automatically, we don't have to look for the switch. The family loves it.

I'm in the market for an inspection camera and remembered this video of the one you purchased. Have you got an affiliate link for this as I'm looking to get the same one you purchased

On "smart" switching, the idea is you don't need an app at all. I use home assistant and a pile of ZigBee switches and sensors (PIR, mmWave, lux) so our lights turn themselves on when and where people are, to varying degrees depending on how dark it is inside and out. There are a couple of hardware override dimmer switches in the relevant places but you don't need to touch them 99% of the time.

Did you use fire proof plasterboard on the ceiling in the kitchen. Great light ideas.

Hi Charlie where did you get your LED aluminium profiles from? We've done something similar in our kitchen but with dimmable LED strips (that's worth a video - minefield!). We did under counter but also under plinth which has been a massive success, it means we can have very low floor level lighting on in the evening which looks really nice. However all the strips are just stuck on (sticky back) and they fall down quite a bit, so I want to set them into an aluminium profile properly now.

Do you need a building regs application for this type of electrical work

Completely unrelated comment - the kitchen fan ducting (visible at 4:01) looks like you've bent a wall mount unit into a duct spaced a bit out from the wall. Assuming this is to route it through a joist. Can you say more about how you did this? Looks good, want to do a similar thing!

My cabinets in the kitchen About 12 long cost me £20 led and they come on every time you walking the kitchen job done

I hope you don’t mind me asking but how do you afford such high spec options in your home? Do you have a day job as well as RU-vid?

Hello

Isn't building regulations say 6 lights to one switch? Did you calculate the amount on a 6amp circuit?... Just kidding.. looks great.

6 switches, and under cabinet lighting not included in one of them. Not convinced. Sorry!

Downligters are so naff the worst thing i ever did loads of bulbs we went from halogen to energy svaers leds an lets face it u just need to light a room what u can do with a 100 w bulb an change for a pound

I really like the lighting approach here but you have so many switches and dimmers there must be 100 combinations of lighting. I understand you want to avoid the need for people to need an app to control lights but I would be just as confused with so many switches. The reality is even with all of these lights you probably only need 4 or 5 combinations of all of the switch and dimmer settings. Think breakfast, preparing a meal, entertaining, relaxing later. I simpler way of selecting a "mood" or toggling between a few moods would I think be much better. We are struggling with the lighting in a large open plan living space and kitchen. We have used a couple of lines of spots on the kitchen space (dimmed) and will then add probably LED strip and perhaps cable lights as we have a large vaulted ceiling. I think you should have considered a lighting controller like Rako. We are going all in with Loxone so can have a number of moods that can be applied based on simple switches and considering time of day, brightness etc. We were worried about the cost of such a system but it's cost less than our driveway which is not actually very large.

Buikding regs say you cant have nice lights