Lighting planning - position, number of recessed spotlights, ideas

Regarding the kitchen: You have tall cabinets on the left and right sides of the plan and an island in the middle. Now take a look at your spotlights: they do not align with the tall cabinets at all, but are positioned in front of them offset. Thus, they do not form a unity with the kitchen or the cabinets. That does not look good. They probably do not fit the island either. Draw the furniture into the plan and then you will see what I mean.

But the appearance of a line that makes a break just doesn’t look right – as in your node WZ/Ess/Flur. And this especially applies when there is a break between the hallway and windfang, that is, a strange angle

Between living room and hallway I agree with you, I will take another look at that.

But there are no spots in the windfang; a ceiling outlet is planned there. I don’t see it as sensible to align that with the spots following in the hallway.

What’s visible for you is a ceiling that has more holes than cheese. Instead of one ceiling outlet, you plan 20?/30? in the living area... somewhere your argument is off. Just think about it

I know what you mean, I just perceive the spatial feeling differently. For me, it’s about something (or nothing) hanging down from the ceiling. For you, it’s about the ceiling being full of holes.

Regarding the kitchen: you have tall cabinets on the left and right walls and an island in the middle. Now look at your spots: they do not correspond at all with the tall cabinets, but are arranged offset in front of them. Therefore, they do not form a unity with the kitchen or the cabinets. That doesn’t look good. They probably don’t fit with the island either. Draw the furniture into the plan – then you will see what I mean.

Feel free to take another look; I am attaching the plan again with kitchen furniture sketched in. I’m not quite clear on what you mean by “do not correspond at all with the tall cabinets, but are arranged offset in front of them.” Could you explain that?

I think it would be helpful to draw in the planned furnishings. That way, I can hardly assess the ceiling and wall outlets. But overall, it would also be too much of a good thing for me.

Is only the island the workspace in the kitchen? That would be very little space.

Is this going to be a kitchen design now? The island is 2.4x1m and there is also a >2m wide niche with the cooktop.

I will provide the furniture planning later!

Lighting design: My personal experience is that electricians believe they can do this on the side by themselves, and that is absolutely not the case. This plan practically screams at me, I am from the electrician.

There are a few basic rules:
- As you get older, you need more brightness. How much more, the lighting designer must know and do correctly.
- Illuminate corners, humans perceive what is bright, the rest of the room is basically dismissed by the brain. There are studies with a dining table in a room and guests sitting there. They recorded movement patterns. If the corners were illuminated, e.g. with a floor lamp or an up/downlight, they were entered and used. With a light strip above the dining table, people basically stayed in the cone of light.
- Situation-related lighting; if more than one situation, then more than one lighting.
- Decentralized, adapted to living habits. Were these queried?
- Glare-free.

By considering these, a lot of electricity and fixtures can be saved, by the way. I saw examples where the lighting costs were halved without users missing any brightness.

Although I have taken professional training courses in lighting design, in the end we commissioned a lighting company. That was worthwhile! Naturally, the half offended electrician believed we could have easily gotten that from him as well. In the past, there was a central light bulb in the middle; now the electrician practically makes the modernized form of that, nicely symmetrical pulled strips. That does not count as lighting design!

Best regards Gabriele