Recessed lighting placement? X-post

10 years ago

I posted a similar question in Building a Home, and live_wire_oak was kind enough to even do a mock plan for me, but I still have some questions.

Below is the cabinet layout for the kitchen. We will plan on doing pendants over the island and over- and under-cabinet lighting.

I keep see conflicting things--should the cans be just about the countertop edge (26-30" from the wall) as I found on this guide, or should they be in the isle as live_wire suggested? I suppose with undercab lighting, isle lighting is not likely to cause shadows?

The other consideration is the we will have fairly dark burgundy cabinets, and I've read on here that recessed lights can light up cabinets really well. Will lights in the isle accomplish this? Thanks for any ideas you can give!

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Comments (3)

gpraceman55
10 years ago
What's your ceiling height?

We have 9 ft ceilings and spaced our recessed lights 3ft from the walls. We don't notice that we cast a shadow onto the counter, so that works out. If you have lower ceilings, shadowing is more of a concern as you move the lights out past the counter's edge.
CamG
Original Author
10 years ago
Oh sorry, I meant to write--we will have 9' ceilings. 3' sounds like a good compromise. Do you get some lights on your cabinet faces? Thanks.
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gpraceman55
10 years ago
We do get light onto our cabinet faces from the recessed lights, but our cabinet finish isn't high gloss, so it really does not come across as glare.

Our old lighting layout had the recessed fixtures centered right over the front edge of the counters. That left the aisles fairly dark. That is why I wanted to move them out a bit into the aisle. We did also add in some extra recessed lights, as a section of our kitchen had no overhead lighting at all. We ended up with a 4 ft spacing for our 6" fixtures. We also went with the Cree CR6 bulbs (EcoSmart brand from Home Depot). We are very happy with how well lit the space is now.