Knowledge Undercabine Lighting

[woodmats]

John,

Did you have to use a power supply? Where did you put it?

Mats

[Steve N]

John I like your idea of white Melamine under the cab to add light to the light. Any chance you could do a mini thread showing them? As usual I am following along part way, but can't fully see how just front trim is keeping the panel up?

[EricU]

I had a can light over the sink behind a valance that spans the two cabinets that frame the sink.  So I wired a switched outlet to the can light and just attached the led power supply to the valance. The ones they sell are thin enough that they fit under the cabinets pretty well.  

I used extrusion from Lee valley.  It was the most expensive part of the project, but I got it done for a lot less than what lights would have cost if I just bought them outright.

[Steve N]

Yeah we have always done it that way. We have a little valance that provides some cover, but if you look, you can still see the works, plus the idea of having it set into a bright white background, and totally conceal them, well it works for me.

[jteneyck]

Here's a photo of our peninsula.  The bullnose molding at the bottom of the upper cabinets covers the front of the Melamine panel screwed up to the bottom.



Looking up under the cabinet you see the new LED puck lights and how the Melamine is screwed to the bottom of the upper.



When the lights are on they are bright white:



Here is a photo of the transformer, and microwave plug, plugged into the outlet inside the cabinet above the microwave:



John

[WaterlooMarc]

How have you handled jumping across the break for the window to the next bank of cabinets? i also have one of those wooden angled range hoods I need to get across too. I did the LED lighting in our last house but all the breaks in the cabinets here are discouraging me. I have a switched outlet above them too...just no gumption to tackle drilling through studs and fishing wire. So I'm curious what y'all have done.

[museumguy]

I was lucky in that during my kitchen remodel, I was able to run low voltage wiring in the wall, up into the ceiling and then down and out of the wall into the cabinet above the wall hung microwave. As I hung each cabinet, I drilled a hole thru the back, in the area where the lights would go. I pulled the wire through the hole and wired the lights accordingly. The reason that I prefer this system is that I could shorten the feed wires so that everything looks neat. Where I work, we use pre made lengths of wire. When we make the connection at the transformer, we then have to bundle the excess wire and I don't like the look.

 Here is what mine looks like,

   

I spilt the outlet so one half is always hot, for the microwave and the other half is switched for the lights. I can try to find the brand of the lighting if you are interested. It's low voltage LED's.

[Steve N]

museumguy, how many lights are you running with all that? I like the look of Johns single plug/transformer, but I am thinking along the same lines as John, as having some lighting just around the counter, and sink area. I'm hoping you are using a lot of lights, or I would think that kinda complex, and fussy.



Thanks for the pix John, clear as a bell now.

[museumguy]

I'm running 5 lights. If you look closely, I just used a terminal block instead of wire nuts. I thought it looked neater. It was actually quite easy to do, once I got the hang of it, red to red, black to black.

[Steve N]

I can do well with a 3 string like John used, and I definitely like that plug better