LED lighting in kitchen furniture – how to plan it in a bespoke kitchen

When I design a kitchen for a client, lighting comes up just as early as the cabinet layout or the choice of fronts. The reason is simple: concealed LED lighting needs wiring, space for a power supply and a decision on how it will be switched. All of this has to be settled before production. Once the fitted furniture is installed, adding lighting usually means visible cables or modifications that could easily have been avoided.

Kitchen lighting is best planned in three layers: general lighting (ceiling lights), task lighting (above the worktop) and decorative lighting. While ceiling installations remain the electrician’s responsibility, this guide focuses on lighting integrated directly into the furniture – discreet LED strips in work areas, inside cabinets and in decorative elements.

Below, I explain how I approach LED lighting in bespoke kitchens in Warsaw and what is worth considering before you make your decisions.

1. Why LED is now standard in bespoke kitchens

LED technology has been a natural choice for fitted kitchens for years, for three specific reasons:

• Energy efficiency and lifespan. LEDs use little energy while providing high brightness, and their lifespan is measured in tens of thousands of operating hours. In bespoke furniture designed to last for years, this matters because replacing a light source hidden inside the construction is more troublesome than replacing a bulb in a standard lamp.
• Safety. LED strips generate much less heat than older light sources, which is important when they are installed directly next to furniture boards and fronts.
• Discreet installation. LED strips and profiles are slim enough to be concealed inside a cabinet, under a wall unit or in a plinth without disrupting the clean lines of the furniture.

In practice, this means the LED lighting can be adapted to the kitchen rather than forcing the kitchen to adapt to the lighting. With bespoke furniture, that is a major advantage because I can conceal the light source exactly where it is needed.

2. Under-cabinet lighting – the most important work area

If I had to name one place where LED lighting always makes sense, it would be the worktop. Wall cabinets cast a shadow exactly where we chop and prepare food. The main ceiling light comes from behind us, so we often work at the counter in our own shadow. An LED strip installed under the wall cabinets solves this problem completely.

The best result comes from an LED strip fitted into an aluminium profile with an opal diffuser, running along the full lower edge of the wall cabinets. The diffuser spreads the light into one even line so the individual LEDs are not visible. I install the profile as close as possible to the front edge of the cabinet underside so the light falls onto the worktop rather than the fronts. It is a small detail, but it determines whether the preparation area is genuinely well lit or merely looks attractive from underneath.

The type of LED strip also affects the appearance of the light – I return to the difference between COB and SMD strips later in the article.

3. Lighting inside cabinets and drawers

More and more of my clients choose lighting inside their furniture, which proves extremely useful in areas that ceiling light cannot reach. This is especially true of tall units, pull-out pantry cabinets, larders and deep drawers, where it can be difficult to find things quickly without an additional light source. It is a solution you particularly appreciate in the evening or on cloudy days because it eliminates the need to search dark corners in poor light.

This type of lighting is most convenient when paired with an opening sensor. The light switches on automatically when the cabinet door is opened or the drawer is pulled out and turns itself off a few seconds after closing. There is nothing to switch manually – the cabinet is lit exactly when you are using it.

It is primarily an attractive extra, but it is worth remembering that each additional lighting module noticeably increases the cost of the fitted furniture. There is no point in illuminating everything – in practice, two or three of the most frequently used areas are usually enough, such as a pantry unit, a corner cabinet or a deep drawer.

4. LED as a decorative element

Beyond its purely practical role, LED lighting can give a kitchen character, especially in the evening. The most common solutions are:

• lighting inside glazed display cabinets – if a display cabinet is part of the furniture, I consider internal lighting almost essential,
• lighting for display shelves,
• plinth lighting – creates a “floating” furniture effect and works well in kitchens open to the living room,
• lighting beneath the worktop of an island or peninsula.

In the evening, this type of lighting is often enough on its own and creates a calmer, cosier atmosphere. It works particularly well in kitchens connected to the living room – layouts I now design very often in Wilanów, Mokotów and Wola.

With decorative lighting, the rule “less is more” works particularly well. Light should act as an accent; subtle plinth lighting or illumination inside display cabinets adds character to the furniture. Lighting every element at once should be avoided, however, because it creates visual clutter instead of elegance.

5. Light colour – which one should you choose?

This question comes up in almost every conversation about lighting. Light colour is expressed in kelvins (K), and it determines whether a kitchen feels warmer and cosier or cooler and more technical. My rule is simple: I use one consistent light colour throughout the kitchen. It creates a coherent, considered result and works well in any interior.

For a home kitchen, I most often recommend warm white. Today the kitchen is part of the living space, often open to the lounge, so it should feel welcoming rather than clinical. Neutral white reproduces food colours more accurately and some people prefer it in the cooking area, but it creates a cooler atmosphere. Either way, I choose one light colour for the whole kitchen and agree it with you at the design stage.

6. Aluminium profiles and IP rating

This is a point many people overlook, yet it affects both how the lighting looks and how long it lasts. An aluminium profile performs two functions at once. First, it dissipates heat from the LEDs – the cooler the strip operates, the longer it maintains its brightness and colour. Second, the opal diffuser spreads the light into one continuous line instead of a row of visible points.

In bespoke furniture, I use only recessed profiles, routed into the element so the diffuser sits flush with the furniture. It looks clean and genuinely integrated. Surface-mounted profiles attached to the underside of a cabinet protrude and look cheaper – they are fine for off-the-shelf furniture, but they defeat the purpose of bespoke cabinetry.

The second issue is the IP rating, which indicates resistance to moisture and splashes. A kitchen is an environment where steam and water are present, so the rating should match the installation location:

• IP20–IP44 – sufficient in most areas: under wall cabinets, inside display cabinets and inside cupboards;
• IP65 – worth considering where the strip is genuinely exposed to steam and water, for example directly above the sink area or in a plinth close to the floor.

7. Which LED strip should you choose – COB or SMD, 12 V or 24 V?

These questions come up more and more often because clients know much more about lighting than they did a few years ago. Below, I briefly explain the two most important distinctions.

COB or SMD LED strip

Older SMD strips have LEDs arranged as separate points, which can appear as a row of dots when the diffuser is not very effective. COB strips have densely packed LEDs beneath a continuous layer, producing a perfectly even line of light with virtually no visible points. I use COB strips in my projects, so the “dotting” effect is not an issue, but it is worth understanding the difference because both types are still available on the market.

12 V or 24 V power supply

Both voltages are safe because they are low voltage rather than mains 230 V. In practice, I prefer 24 V for longer runs because the light remains more even along the entire length and there is less brightness drop at the end of the strip. For short sections, such as inside a single cabinet, the difference is negligible.

8. How to control the lighting

The way the lighting is switched affects everyday convenience more than you might expect. The simplest solution is a double wall switch: one button controls the main room light and the other the LED lighting. There are also several other options, which I choose depending on how the kitchen is meant to function day to day:

• touch or proximity switch – it can be concealed under a cabinet in line with the strip or installed beneath the worktop: move your hand near the selected point and the light switches on,
• opening sensor – for lighting inside cabinets and drawers; the light switches on when the front is opened and turns off automatically a few seconds after closing,
• motion sensor – useful for plinth lighting as a subtle night light; it can switch on at reduced brightness when someone enters the kitchen at night,
• remote or app control (smart home) – allows you to adjust brightness and lighting scenes and integrate the kitchen lighting with the rest of the home system.

In most kitchens, a simple switch for the work area and opening sensors inside cabinets are enough. More advanced smart-home control makes sense when the kitchen is part of a larger integrated home system – I encounter this more often in detached houses in Wilanów, Konstancin or Mokotów than in apartment blocks.

9. What we decide at the design stage

I plan the lighting together with the furniture – there is no sensible alternative because wiring and power supplies must be allowed for before the furniture goes into production. From your side, there are really only two decisions to make: the light colour and which areas you want to illuminate. I take care of the rest.

I take care of the technical side:

• routing the wiring to each LED strip through the furniture and walls,
• concealing the power supply – I usually hide it in the extractor cabinet, out of sight but still accessible for servicing,
• selecting the correct strip and power-supply capacity so the lighting is even and reliably powered.

Read more: bespoke kitchen or ready-made kitchen – what should you choose and when? →

10. How much does LED kitchen lighting cost?

This is a common question, so let me explain what the cost actually depends on. I provide exact figures in the quotation because they depend on the length of the lighting and the number of zones, but the basic logic is simple.

Basic under-cabinet lighting above the worktop – always installed in a recessed profile in my projects – is a small item in the context of the entire kitchen and makes very little difference to the overall price. That is why I always recommend lighting the work area; the improvement in comfort is disproportionately large compared with the cost.

The cost only starts to rise when several zones are illuminated at once – display cabinets, the plinth, cabinet interiors and the island. Each adds a similar amount, so the more areas you light, the higher the total. At that point, it is a decision about how much decorative effect you want rather than basic functionality.

I have collected indicative price ranges for an entire bespoke kitchen in a separate article – how much does a bespoke kitchen cost in Warsaw?.