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Under Cabinet Lighting: Two Kinds Of Lighting Under Your Cabinets

Under cabinet lighting is very easy to install, as it needs only an unused area beneath your cabinet, and can add immeasurably to the charm of your kitchen.

Under cabinet lighting is an excellent way to illuminate the work surfaces of your kitchen, especially if they are placed under the cabinets. If you don’t use under cabinet lighting, you will find out that there is simply not enough lighting in your kitchen to eliminate cabinets’ shadows cast on the countertops. There are two kinds of under cabinet lighting – plug-in and hardwired.

Plug-in Under Cabinet Lighting:

This kind of lighting is very easy to install, as it needs only an unused outlet nearby. Just fix it under a cabinet, plug the unit into an outlet and you’ll get the lighting.

This solution is good enough when you have to illuminate only a small area, but it starts to fail when you need to install under cabinet lighting in the whole kitchen. Then the number of exposed wires grows rapidly along with the number of switches you have to operate in order to turn on all the lighting.

Hardwired Under Cabinet Lighting:

In such case, hardwired under cabinet lighting becomes an attractive alternative. It has no exposed wiring and can be operated by only a single switch. The whole under cabinet lighting system is centralized and tapped into one power source. The installation process will usually require hiring an electrician as there’s a lot of complicated electrical work involved, but the effects are rewarding – after you install hardwired under cabinet lighting, turning the lights on or off will be much more comfortable than running to several plug-in lighting sources.

No-No of Lighting Installation:

Remember, when you decide to install under cabinet lighting yourself, you simply have to know exactly what you are doing. Electricity is by no means “hit or miss” game and the results of installation mistakes may vary from permanently turning off the light in your house to serious injuries of the unlucky electrician.