Most kitchens are poorly lit. But designers and lighting experts don’t agree on which lamps work best in which fixtures, and especially where those fixtures need to be located. Since you can’t manage what you don’t measure, Doug first used a light meter app on his phone, to measure delivered foot candles on the countertops of the old kitchens he was working on. NKBA and IESNA agree that 50 fc is the minimum for kitchen counters. But most existing kitchens he measured had less than 20 fc.

To do it better, he used client kitchens under remodel as his “lab”, and mocked up different types of fixtures, lamps and layouts. He quickly discovered that all lumens are not created equal. Choosing the right PAR30 lamp for instance, yielded 10 x more foot candles than a BR30 bulb, even though both bulbs were rated the same lumen output!
Next, he redesigned their kitchen lighting and then had a lighting engineer model the layouts on a computer, adjusting the layout and beam spreads to achieve target light levels. Finally, he went back after the kitchen remodels were complete to take actual foot candle levels, confirming the simulations.

Doug contends that the best kitchen lighting is layered, and comes from a blend of art, with a little bit of science to back it up. He will share several NKBA national award-winning kitchen designs that demonstrate great lighting.