What kind of general lighting do you have?

I will be at this stage soon - I selected LED under cabs and viewed them with my granite sample (bianco antico) in the shop. While I liked hallogen better, I thought the LEDs were just fine with mine.

I have put LEDs in for the general lighting as well. The regular lights were just too hot with my low-ish ceiling. Come to think of it, I have not brought the sample in since those went in.

Have you tried different kinds of LED lights?

Love those tiny sexy strips you get with LED, I have not tried others I was not aware there are different types. What am I looking for? I got mine from ikea. We used them in bathroom under the floating vanity and love them. I too would rather not use holegens under, we had them before and would like to do something different. Let me know what happens with you sample. .

Sounds like your stone looks best under warmer light. Not warm temp, but warm color. I have almost all LED lighting in my kitchen, between 2700 and 3000 degrees Kelvin on the color scale. It feels warm and cozy. Cooler lighting is less inviting to me, and maybe your stone feels the same way. ;) What color temp are your UCLs?

Halogen is the best light to bring up the sparkle in the stone that is why when you go to jewelry store diamonds and other stones have more sparkle,jewelers use halogen lights in they show cases.Hopes this helps

Hi!

I have a dark granite counter and backsplash, I also have 3000 warm LED UC lighting and love it.

Elaine

foramblues, I have no idea what the numbers are. I got the led strips from IKea and you don't get much info from them. Agreed the Halogen is probably going to be best it's weird how the bright little LED don't make the sparkle bits sparkle.

fouramblues, I am getting LED and deciding between 2700 and 3000 K. I'm worried if the 3000 would be too cool?

We have yellow and white cabinetry, white marble and walnut island top.

jjaazzy- I think jewelry stores also use LED now. There are so many varieties so it's very tricky. Maybe you can bring a piece of your granite to a lighting store?

One of the happy surprises I got with my hood was how much I like the halogen lights. It's very warm. I only use them on low.

When I get ready to cook, the first thing I do is turn on those warm inviting lights.

You should try some better LED lights - warmer color and better CRI (color rating index) quality. I got mine from Environmentallights.com. But they do require a transformer.

I have been researching this all morning it seems that the IKea lights are 2700 and considered warm. Talked to a Lighting guy this AM and he suggests a 6600 cool light for the granite. Oh boy!

Seeing as it is now 5 years since you posted, you will probably never see this, but I have just been sitting and staring transfixed at the sparkles in my Alaska White counter top. We just put in track lighting on a 7 ft. 6 in ceiling with 3500K LED flood lights. It is showing the sparkles pretty well. I find 2700K to be dingy looking and anything over the 3500K to be too cool. Getting into the 6500 range, which they often call "daylight" looks absolutely garish to me. Would like to see the effect of halogen on the sparkles, but they use so much electricity! Oh well.

Thanks gmherp..I did see it! The understanding of LED has come a long way. I just scrapped the idea of the under cabinet lights. Nothing was better then plane old reg light, and the money they were talking about for something different was more then I wanted to spend. same in my master bath that has beautiful marble with large clusters of sparkles. That too looks best with the reg light bulb. Thanks for adding to the conversation. I will have to check out your countertops.

Get a portable light - something that takes regular bulbs - and some LEDs of various color temps from "warm white" through 'daylight'

Try them and see which color temperature looks the best.