Cabinet Lighting - FAQ

In spite of the recent recession, their has been a continuing rise in the number of custom homes being specified and built. Contractors from all over the nation have called our office seeking advice on where to find custom cabinet and cove lighting supplies and fixtures. We have compiled a short FAQ to represent a synthesis of these questions in the hopes that this can be helpful to builders and cabinet makers currently working in the custom home building industry.

Do you supply rope lights as cabinet and cove lights?

No. We acknowledge the decorative benefits of rope lights in certain decorative applications such as holiday lighting and patio lighting. However, rope lighting is not an ideal choice for cabinet lighting or cove lighting construction.

This is due to a number of reasons. For one thing it is difficult to control the reflective glare that comes off appliances and countertops when you are using rope lights as under cabinet lights. While cove rope lights do supply plentiful illumination to these surfaces, they lack the adequate shielding that is needed to keep too much light from shining onto a surface and then back into the eyes.

By the same token, it is also very hard to control the direction of the lighting itself with these simple fixtures. Light shines in all directions and reflects off of everything at once and you have no glare shields to conceal or hide the source.

What about using rope lights as cove or over the cabinet lights?

While it may be tempting to install them as low-cost cove lights and over the cabinet lights, we recommend you avoid this as well. Rope lights have a relatively short life expectancy, so if one light in the string fails, the rest go down with it. This will result in half the cove being lit and the other left in darkness, and cause the homeowner to have to go find a lighting supply source on their own to find a replacement. This is not an inconvenience that you want your client to inherit. Phantom cove lights use long life 2800K festoon lamps that provide years of trouble free service.

What can you supply as a cabinet and cove lighting alternative?

We are glad you asked this. Our custom LED energy saving linear lights have been engineered for custom manufacturing and low-profile design. This essentially means that a linear strip is created to fit a specific cabinet interior, over the cabinet top shelf, or cove near the ceiling.

We are perhaps the only luxury lighting supplier currently working in this marketplace that offers this degree of customization, and who can manufacture and deliver the product so expeditiously and cost-effectively for the contractor.

All you need to do is give us the dimensions of the cabinet or cove you intend to light and decide on what level of light and colour temperature is most appropriate for the initial home interior design for the new construction. Our lighting supply representative network and manufacturing facility in Houston, TX will take care of the rest.

What advantages do Phantom Cabinet and Cove Lighting Fixtures provide over standard fixtures made for the same purpose?

For one thing, they present a highly adaptable and resilient fixture made with onboard glare shields pre-mounted to the lighting fixture. This supply a much more controlled and evenly distributed spread of luminance under a cabinet or over a cove. Phantom cabinet lighting fixtures are also engineered for maximum concealment. Rather than using visible, external wires to conduct current, our lighting transformer supplies power to the lamps through metal shelf supports and bus bars along the strip. This allows the homeowner to remove shelving for cleaning or redecorating without risk of damage to the strips or fear of electric shock.