Hi Eleena,

Amazing about the shout-outs. I never thought there were that many! I hope I didn't miss any.

My lighting started with a big hate or three. Before this house I had almost always had fluorescent lighting in kitchens. The exception was a tiny kitchen in a college apartment which hardly had any lighting at all, but I was hardly ever home to notice. :) The old kitchen in the current house had 6" cans, and not nearly enough to light the whole kitchen.

Edit: I had meant to say that I was also hamstrung by California law which limits how much incandescent lighting one can use. I had to have a lot of fluorescent and LED to justify just the halogens and my one incandescent hanging fixture that takes a very low watt bulb.

Hate #1: Shadows and bright spots. Such things are find for "drama" but I don't want a dramatic house, especially not in a workspace. All the dark spots were depressing and I hated being in the old kitchen at night.

Hate #2: Fluorescent light. Fluorescent is washy light that chases away shadows, and is certainly better than the too few cans, but the old style flickers, and because it's washy, things look a little blurry. I hate blurry worse than flickering. I go to great lengths to get glasses that correct my vision to very sharp, and I hate having it dulled by the light.

Hate #3: The color of fluorescent lights. My eyes have always been sensitive to light and color (I used to consult on color design), and as a grown up who cooks, I just couldn't bear the 3000K light color temperature.

Hate #4: Pocked ceilings. This is an aesthetic consideration. I have recessed cans all over my house because that's the way it came. The rooms are pretty large and don't lend themselves to lamps very well (tripping hazards), so they're useful. But I hate seeing the gaps in the ceilings.

I kept putting off lighting. My contractor knows vast quantities of things, but other than making Swiss cheese of my ceiling and putting in a bazillion cans, he had no suggestions. I asked the Lighting Forum, where I was referred to the fairly new design studio that a local electrical supply company had. Where they also have lighting designers. I could see the products in installed settings, including kitchens. The rate for lighting design was very reasonable. And I lucked out big time, that the designer I hired there, Brian Brzycki, had just been through almost the same demands with his wife, so I got to piggyback on the research he did for her.

What Brian designed for me was a combination of lighting layers. There are fluorescent lights to fill the room, but they're the new style very thin tubes, and there are a lot of them. They don't flicker much, and have the color temperature reduced to a sunshiny yellow (2700K). MUCH easier on the eyes. The downlighting over the island is too strong for me, and does flicker a bit, so I keep it dimmed, and only turn it on when I'm actually working on the island at night.

The up lighting in that fixture fills the room. It's bounced off the pale orange ceiling, which mutes any flicker, and is very easy on the eyes. Most of the time it's all I use. Plenty of unshadowed light even underneath it on the island. That is, it's less light underneath the fixture with the downlights off, but because of the nature of fluorescent light, there's no shadow line, and it's just less light underneath, not dark. Certainly enough to measure to feed my sourdough starter, though I'd turn on the down light if I were actually making bread.

Add to that, perimeter cans with glass diffusers, which defuse both hot spots and pock marks, undercabinet, color corrected LED's, dual cans over the clean-up sink, four halogens in the hood, plus several cans and LED's in the butler's pantry, and there aren't any unlit spots, no buzzing, very little flickering, nothing too bright for my eyes, but full light rather than anything dim. Brian more than earned his fee.

So that's the how's and the whys of it. :) The only piece I chose all by myself was the little tulip pendant in the peak under the stairs, but it's just there for seeing into the understairs broom closet or using as a nightlight or decor.

Hope this helps.

This post was edited by plllog on Sun, Jun 15, 14 at 15:46

Thank you so much, JC!

Sorry, I stopped checking the forum for a few days.

I am digesting what you said and may have more questions soon. :-)

Hi Eleena,

I ran across a very very old thread the other day where you asked questions about a corner in my kitchen. I seem to have gotten diverted and don't think I answered your base question. If you still want to know anything about that, or more about the lighting, or whatever, feel free! And it's fine to remind me if I miss something in the answer. :)