Antique Corner Cabinet Lighting
When it comes to antique corner cabinets, many people approach cabinet lighting with a set of preconceptions that make them feel very limited in what they are able to do. Some are concerned that installing lights will destroy the value of the cabinet itself. Others may believe that only certain types of lights will look good in a cabinet, and that only certain lighting angles will work. The prospect of illuminating a corner piece from an old ship or a historical residence often appears daunting because of this. The unique dimensions of these prized possessions are seldom, if ever, matched by standard linear cabinet lighting systems.
This is the first advantage that Phantom products offer over other forms of cabinet lighting. We are a custom linear lighting strip manufacturer, so it is a simple matter for us to create a strip light that will fit within the dimensions of even the most unique antique corner cabinets. What we need from the client in order to create these build-to-order specialty furniture lights is a detailed description of the cabinet’s itself. We need a complete set of dimensions, and we need to know details about the nature of the shelves, doors, and interior cabinet reveals.
All of these details factor into creatinga unique product that will install with minimal invasiveness and seamlessly blend with the cabinet interior to become a practically invisible source of light. In most instances, clients are pleasantly surprised, to say the least, when they see how adaptive our products are to their specific applications.
For example, if you have glass shelves inside of your curio cabinet, you may assume that the only viable form of cabinet lighting would be a top-down light source that would radiate through the shelves. This is actually one of the worst ways to light a cabinet due to shadowing and the law of physics known as the inverse square law. This law basically states that the intensity of light decreases as the square of the distance from the light source. In most cases, this means the lower and bottom shelves of your cabinet will have an unattractive absence of light.
Superior custom cabinet lighting requires vertically mounted strips that run from the top to the bottom so that the interior between the shelves receives an even distribution of light. This can be done one of two ways. If there is enough space between the shelf and the door frame, we can create two strips that will traverse the entirety of the interior reveals on either side of the cabinet. The lights themselves will not be seen because they are thin enough in width to be easily concealedon either side of the door frame.
In many cases, however, antique cabinets were built prior to the advent of cabinet lighting. No one at the time considered the need to create space between the reveals and the lip of each shelf. Consequently, there is no room to run a linear strip. For these cabinet lighting installations, we will create segmented strips to daisy chain together, and simply run a wire over the lip of the shelf to connect one strip to the other. Only a single penetration has to be made at the corner base of each reveal to power the linear lights from a hidden transformer.
These are just two examples of how our custom cabinet lighting works in even the most challenging of applications. New, completely heat-free LED lamps and light sources can now be added to our strips that emulate the color temperature of xenon. These cool burning replacement LED lamps can be left on indefinitely behind closed glass doors—adding value to the presentation while protecting the value of your investment with a light source that is super energy efficient and poses no risk of overheating.
Feel free to contact us toll free at 800-863-1184, visit our mobile website, lighting blog or online lighting showroom to discover which Phantom Lighting products and models will best adapt to your particular lighting needs. Together, the professionals at Phantom Lighting will ensure that your next project is an astounding success!
