Under Cabinet Lighting

This weekend I had planned to change out the overhead kitchen light, but then I switched gears to focus on undercabinet lighting. I picked up a low-profile xenon, linking under cabinet lighting system from Lowe's more than a year ago, but never got around to the installation. Until this weekend.

Apparently xenon lighting is better than halogen bulbs because the xenon bulbs don't burn so hot, and the linking systems are pretty easy to put together, so that's why I went with this type of installation. The whole installation from start to finish took about an hour and 45 minutes.

First I organized all the tools I needed: a drill, drill bits, screwdriver, and the level was used to help with consistent spacing from the front of the cabinet.

I used one-half inch wood screws to attach the lights to the underside of the cabinets. Anything longer than one-half inch would have punctured through the bottom of the cabinet. So with the lights installed, I began linking the lights together. To do that, I drilled holes between the cabinets using a 11/16 inch spade drill bit and pushed the wiring through. I hid the excess wires in the space between the cabinets.

I installed a total of five lights - all linked together and then two wires were included for plugging in to an outlet - one plug-in for the lights to the left of the microwave and another plug-in for the lights to the right. So all I had to do was drill up through the bottom of the two cabinets on both sides of the microwave and run the wire up to the outlet above the microwave oven.

Each light has a separate on-off switch. That way you don't waste energy by having to use all of the lights when you might only need them in one area.

Below you can see a before picture before the under cabinet lighting installation. The overhead light was off when I snapped this photo.

And after. The overhead light was still off and so you can see these under cabinet lights really put out the light!

Here is a wider angle view of the kitchen, this time with the overhead light on.

I still plan to switch out the overhead kitchen light, but that will have to wait a couple more days.