Tips on Lighting Your Kitchen, Master Bath and Dining Room – Kelly Kirkland of Bend Lighting
A conversation with Kelly Kirkland of Bend Lighting
https://nestbendrealestate.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Kelly-Kirland-Bend-Lighting-Kitchen-Bathroom-Tips_Edited.mp3Karen Malanga: Hi, this is Karen Malanga with another edition of House Talk. Today, we have Kelly Kirkland back. She’s got some more lighting tips. We’ve been having some wonderful conversations. And I think for sellers, there are three rooms that she feels really make or break a home. Those would be the kitchen, the master bath and the dining room.
So Kelly, give us some ideas and tips on how you can update or upgrade some lighting in those areas to really make them sparkle.
Kelly Kirkland: Well, first, I like to try to figure out what the client’s style is. If it’s a pre-existing house, those styles from the prior client probably do not fit with the furnishings and the taste of the new client.
In a master bath, it’s very important that the lighting is very good for make-up and shaving—generally, a fixture with glass that come downward instead of upward.
The dining room, again, depending on what clients do in their life—they might read the morning paper there, they might just have formal dining there and have a breakfast nook where they do their newspaper—I try to create the dining light around their styles.
They may have children that will do their schoolwork at that table. So sometimes, down-lighting and a chandelier is important or maybe just dramatic uplighting.
Kitchens are very important because that’s where you prepare your food. So, depending again on the client, whether it has a kitchen island, I try to take in context several style methods—either decorative pennants on the island and then the clean recess cans throughout, or sometimes it might be a big general illuminator like a fluorescent or a decorative incandescent in the center of the room.
Karen: And also, before we went live here today, we were discussing how some people spend all that money replacing their countertops. They want that beautiful, shiny granite, yet they don’t have the lighting that’s even going to pick up the shine.
Kelly: Yes, correct. You can spend a lot of money on the countertops, the carpet, the woodwork. But if it’s not properly lit, you will not see all those things as nicely as a well-lit house.
Karen: It just won’t show.
Kelly: It won’t show.
Karen: I know personally when I’m out with new buyers and we’re looking at homes, when we go into a home and all the lights are on and everything is lit well, that home stays in those buyer’s mind throughout the entire day. We might be seeing seven homes, and they’ll remember the one that had just the right lighting. It feels good.
And I think, also, a woman can visualize herself cooking a meal. And especially if you have dimmers in the dining room, maybe having more of a romantic evening or just entertaining guests with soft lighting, but then being able to turn up the light, maybe multi-tasking in those rooms as well for children’s homework or…
Kelly: Yes, dimmers are very key I think. In fact, one of the places that most people don’t think about putting a dimmer is a master bath. In my home, I dim my master bath.
Karen: I can certainly use that now.
Kelly: So, my husband, for example, is up at different hours of the night. We can dim that lighting down as low as what a nightlight would produce, and then increase the light output if we’re getting ready for work.
Karen: That makes a whole lot of sense. And what about the master closet? I find dark closets are always a deterrent as well.
Kelly: Yes, master closets are very important. Many times, people will put can lighting in a closet. But due to code, you’ve got to put a diffuser over them similar to a shower trim. And when you do that, then you’ve got to lower the wattage because of the heat built up in the can.
I am a big proposer of fluorescent lighting with color-corrected lamps, electronic ballasts or a nice general illuminator perhaps with LED lighting, a fixture that spreads even disbursement all throughout the room, not small beams of light like a can produces.
Karen: Yeah! Well, thank you for these tips. It’s been great to have you back.
Kelly: Well, you’re welcome. Thank you for inviting me again.
Karen: You’re welcome. Now, how can someone find you though? Where’s Bend Lighting?
Kelly:We are at 615 Southeast Glenwood Suite 100. We’re right next to Bend High School.
Karen: Okay. And your website is?
Kelly: www.Bend-Lighting.com.
Karen: Okay, thanks again. We were just listening to Kelly Kirkland from Bend Lighting. Thank you, Kelly.
Kelly: Thank you.
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