Under cabinet lighting installation
Under cabinet lighting is the cheapest change that makes a kitchen feel finished, because it puts light where you actually work instead of behind your own shoulders. A ceiling fixture lights the room and then your body shades the counter. Under cabinet lighting fixes that for a few hundred dollars and an afternoon. It sits between our kitchen repair work and our light fixture service, and it needs more planning than either.
Service family Kitchen repair
Scheduling Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Service area Six counties across Southeast Michigan
Phone (734) 540-0347
What it does for a kitchen
Three things at once. It lights the counter for chopping and reading, it washes the backsplash so the room reads deeper, and it gives you a low light level in the evening that does not mean turning the whole ceiling on. The third is the one homeowners end up using most, long after the novelty of the first has worn off.
Plug in, hard wired and the honest difference
Plug in units run a cord to a receptacle, usually inside a cabinet or behind an appliance. Hard wired units connect to a junction box and a wall switch. Plug in is quicker, cheaper and completely reversible. Hard wired looks better because nothing is visible, and it needs a box and a switch that already exist or an electrician to add them.
Where our work stops and a licensed electrician starts
We fit the fixtures, run the low voltage wiring, hide the drivers and connect to a receptacle or an existing switched box. The list below belongs to a licensed electrical contractor.
- Adding a receptacle, a switch or a junction box
- Running new cable through a finished wall from the panel
- Panel work, breaker changes and service upgrades
- Hard wiring a driver where no box exists today
- Anything needing a municipal permit and an inspection
Tape light, puck lights and linear bars
Tape light is a flexible strip that gives an even wash and needs a channel to look like anything other than a strip of tape. Puck lights are cheap, simple and throw visible pools with dark gaps between them. Linear bars are rigid, come in fixed lengths and give the most even result with the least fuss. For most kitchens we fit bars or tape in an aluminum channel.
Where the light should sit under the cabinet
Forward, against the front rail, rather than back against the wall. That puts the source above the front edge of the counter, lights the work surface evenly and keeps the bright strip out of your eye line when you stand at the sink. Mounted at the back, the same fixture lights the backsplash beautifully and leaves your cutting board in shadow.
What gets checked before we start
- Cabinet depth, and whether a front rail exists to hide the fixture
- The nearest receptacle, and whether it is switched
- Counter material, since polished stone reflects a bare strip
- Backsplash condition and how far it runs up the wall
- Cabinet run lengths, corners and appliance gaps
Hiding the driver and the wires
Low voltage lighting needs a driver, which is a small box that has to live somewhere. Inside the adjacent cabinet, above a soffit or behind a toe kick are the usual places. Wires run in the cabinet corner, stapled to the underside of the frame where nobody looks. A tidy installation is judged entirely on whether any of that is visible from the room.
The route along the wall, and the outlets in the way
Receptacles, switch boxes and a tiled backsplash all sit exactly where the wiring wants to go. The usual route is under the cabinet bottoms and through the cabinet sides, drilling through the stiles rather than along the wall. Where a run crosses an appliance gap, the cable goes up and over inside the upper cabinet, which is why cabinet work and this job pair well.
Color temperature matched to the rest of the room
Under cabinet lighting that is a different colour from the ceiling lights is the mistake we see most. If the ceiling runs three thousand kelvin, the counter should too. Anything cooler makes food look grey and makes the wood in the room look flat. We match to what is already in the room, or set both at once where the ceiling is being changed anyway, the same rule our outlet and switch replacement crew follows for device finishes.
Dimming, and the switch you already have
These want to be dimmable, because the evening use case needs about a tenth of the output of the chopping use case. That means an LED rated dimmer at the existing switch location and a driver that dims. Not every driver does, and a non dimming driver on a dimmer flickers and buzzes. We check the driver specification before it goes in the cabinet.
Battery and rechargeable units
Rechargeable bar lights with a magnetic mount have a real place: a rental where nothing can be fixed, a cabinet with no reachable power, or a house where somebody wants to try the idea before committing. The trade off is taking them down to charge every few weeks. We will fit them and we will tell you what they are.
Glare off a polished counter
A bare strip above a polished quartz or granite counter reflects as a hard line of light straight back at you. Two things fix it. A channel with a frosted diffuser, which softens the source, and mounting the fixture forward and slightly angled at the wall. On a honed or matte counter neither matters much. We look at your counter before choosing the fixture.
Open shelving and cabinets with no front rail
Frameless cabinets and open shelving leave nothing to hide a fixture behind, so the fixture becomes visible and has to be chosen on looks as well as output. A slim channel set into a shallow rabbet on the shelf underside is the neat answer, and that is carpentry as much as lighting. It gets decided with the shelf rather than after it.
Garages, laundry rooms and home offices
The same fixtures work anywhere there is a surface under a cabinet. Laundry rooms, workbenches, a garage bench and a desk under a shelf all benefit, and a home office setup visit often ends with a bar light under the shelf above the desk rather than a new ceiling fixture. A backsplash upgrade through backsplash installation is the natural moment to do it.
Where this becomes a lighting plan
One run under one bank of cabinets is a visit. Layered lighting across a whole floor, with accent work, cove detail and controls that talk to each other, belongs with our lighting design service. Where the ceiling needs work at the same time, recessed lighting installation and this job get planned together rather than in sequence.
How long the work takes
A plug in run along one bank of cabinets is two to three hours. A full kitchen with two or three runs, a hidden driver and a dimmer change is most of a day. Where the backsplash is being replaced anyway, the wiring goes in first and the visit is shorter. It pairs easily with light fixture replacement elsewhere in the house.
Book under cabinet lighting with our crew
Stand at your own counter with the ceiling light on and look at your hands. If they are in shadow, this is the job. We will match the colour to the rest of the room, hide the driver properly and leave nothing visible from the doorway, across Northville and our wider area. View our Portfolio, then contact us now for a free quote.
