Nope, you are not overthinking or imagining these things. I bought some new buffet lamps for my dining room and spent a couple days testing various CFL lightbulbs I had in my stash. The difference in the color of the room was amazing!

Can you visit a lighting store or Lowe's? Most of them have a display showing different light "colors" - I know my local Lowe's has a display with 5 different color temperatures of LED lights (we also used the "wrong" ones in the hallway at first and everything looked blue - changed them out from "4000" to "3000" and everything looks good again.

Then there is the problem when you like the warmer light and your spouse likes the bluer light! DH's office feels like walking into an industrial warehouse at night, a sickly blue light. I refuse to put those anywhere else ... I spent lots of time/money decorating and those lights ruin the natural colors ... he thinks it looks just like daylight. Not even close!

Yes, you will need to test a whole bunch out.

Oh, I also used Simply White for all my trim & doors and it is a great white, clean and bright but not stark.

I have yet to find a CFL that I like. My stairwell to the lower level is now a neon yellow rather than the soft, delicate yellow it used to be and we can't change that bulb ourselves. Ugh. I like either incandescent or the warmer LED.

Well at least I know I'm not alone. Was trying to avoid buying a bunch of light bulbs as testers, but I am going to have to go that route. I have visited Lowes but again find that light to make the lightbulbs different too. UGH! I just found this Martha Stewart link which is absolutely confusing but has recommendations about what type of lights to use in what type of fixtures. For example a CFL works well for illuminating a space less than 4 feet away.
Of course, it also mentions that the shade is a factor as well of course. I think I might just paint everything black!

Here is a link that might be useful: The Right Light

The problem is....your spouse goes around changing out ALL the light bulbs to CFLs or LEDs while I'm at work!!! And I have to gently explain to him it isn't the 'right light' and go back and fix it. Grrrrr!!! Oh my aching eyes!

Who would have ever thought light bulbs could be such a big pain these days. I put daylight bulbs in my kitchen because it was so dark, with all the dark cabs and paneling. Now, all the paneling has been removed and new sheetrock put up and the kitchen is so light and bright on its own, and the daylight bulbs are actually too much light, and look awful with the white sheetrocked ceiling. They need to be changed, and I have tried, and ended up with light bulbs stashed in a cabinet that I will probably never use, and all look just as bad or worse than the daylight that I already have.

In the bulb section of our Lowe's store, there is a display of how each light looks in your room....daylight, bright white, etc. Very helpful when choosing the bulb you want.

There is a display in the Lowes here too, and I have bought bulbs after looking at the display. Somehow, they just dont look the same in my kitchen. So far, no problem with bulbs in any room but the kitchen, so guess thats a good thing. :-)

My ex came by my house yesterday to check out the LEDs I installed in my dining room fixture. I like the Cree LEDs I got at Home Depot--2700K, 40W equivalent, dimmable, CRI of 93 (if I remember right). I used those for the uplights. But in the bowl of the fixture I used different LEDs I had on hand--3000K, maybe 20W equivalent (4W LED). You can definitely see the color difference between the two (uplights are warmer), although I'm not terrible bothered by it (I don't spend a lot of time staring directly at the fixture). I like the light quality, and the color rendering is fine. I like 'em. But LEDs and especially CFLs are much less consistent in terms of how colors look than incandescents were, and are going to take a bit of getting used to. Color temperature, CRI, lumens, oh my! It used to be so easy when all you needed to look at was how many watts.

I have CFLs almost everywhere else, and had them when I painted most of the house, so the paint colors were picked under that light. Most of those bulbs haven't burned out yet--just that dining room fixture that got the LEDs. I still have incandescents in the bathroom, since I can't abide the slow warm-up time (especially in my cold house) in a room I'm usually in for only a minute at a time. I'll go LED when they burn out.

I've been stocking up on incandescents. I have quite the stash going!! My local supermarket still has a bunch. They are not a huge chain -- a regional smaller chain.

However, I did find in Target or Walmart a "new-fangled" GE bulb that called itself "soft white" and it is. They are halogen based, which emit some heat, which is not good in the summer or for females over a certain age (hee hee).

I bought LED recessed lights for the kitchen that are 2700 Kelvin. Good Soft color, but wow very pricey!!! Supposedly they last a long time... hope so.

I won't buy CFLs. Hate them and it's so stupid if they break.... call the hazmat team?? Its crazy to have to take spent bulbs to the transfer station. And most people probably are not doing that. Using mercury is like going backwards. Not eco-friendly at all.

LED's are the future but the price and the aesthetics need to improve.

I also bump up the watts. Wherever I would have wanted a 75W in the past, now I get the "100W replacement" which is really 72W. That is how to get enough lumens (light). If I want a real 60, I get a new-style 75 (uses 53W).

It reminds me of cereal boxes that are the same size and price but don't have as much content in them. And then they call it "new and improved". Just more downsizing.

Like the "long life" bulbs... yeah they are longer life, but they don't put out as much lumens as a standard bulb so of course they last longer... duh...

Wendyb, you and I are on the same page. I've been stockpiling too, and I also find that lumens to wattage don't really match up exactly as they say they do on the labels.

Another thing is that most of the new lighting doesn't put out enough light, so I'm hoarding all my old fixtures and repainting them or finding someway to update them, rather than purchase new ones. The new ones just don't put out enough light. Ceiling fans, for example, now only take three 60 watt or four 40 watt candelabra bulbs. We have to have ceiling fans here in the deep south, but that low level of overhead light output is ridiculously silly. All it does is cause shadows. I'm keeping all my old fans that can take two 100 watt bulbs or three 75 watt bulbs. I'll use them as long as I can with my incandescent stockpile.

em11, you bring up another interesting point. I have found that lighting fixtures at the box stores rarely accept more than 60W. I go to a regular lighting supply store (1) for better selection (2) for better customer service and solid advice and (3) their manufacturers still make fixtures that accept 75W or 100W bulbs. Recently got several. Whether that will remain the case, who knows, but it buys us time. And independent lighting stores -- at least the one I go to -- can be price competitive.

And with the change in light bulb specs will a fixture that says it takes 100W bulbs for example really mean "old-style 100 watts" or the new "100 watt replacements that actually only use 73W". Even though I had some 75W incandescents on hand, I tried a 100W "replacement" in a fixture that claimed 75W max and it is fine.

But now what I am finding is that I ought to replace all fixture bulbs at once when one burns out because of slight color differences in what I am grabbing to replace it. Either that or get organized and figure out a consistent replacement strategy so I don't get mix and match colors in one fixture!!

Em11, you can find light fixtures that have more bulbs and wattage, but you do have to look beyond the box stores, like mentioned above. I just bought a new semi-flush for my son's room and it takes 4 x 100w bulbs. I now need to install a dimmer because it is a bit too bright at bedtime, but great at other times when you need the light.

Watts are watts. It's a measure of electricity flow. CFLs and LEDs use many fewer watts than incandescents to get the same lumen output, so you can actually get more light out of a 60W fixture with CFLs or LEDs than with incandescents because you get more lumens per watt. The watt-equivalent info on the packaging for LEDs and CFLs has nothing at all to do with their energy consumption--it's an attempt to convey information about their light output (measured in lumens) to a population of people who have always equated watts with light outputs. That was fine when incandescents were the only lighting technology, but it's a whole new world. Until everyone can start thinking in lumens, we'll see that equivalent published.

The new halogen A lamps have less heat output than a standard incandescent. Halogens are actually a subset of incandescent lamps, and "incandescent" basically means that they produce light by heating up a filament until it glows. All incandescent lights are basically inefficient room heaters that incidentally produce light. Less watts = less heat.

Yes, highlighting lumens would be best, but color counts too. And wattage counts as far as the capacity of fixtures -- true wattage.

I was pleasantly surprised the other day when I took out a burnt out bulb and the lumens reading was imprinted on it. That's new and I like it.