Hi thedinos, that is a lot of recessed lights, I would say you could eliminate most if not all of the red ones if you also are going to have under cabinet lighting. I think the undercab would be preferable in those areas. In any event I would want to make all of the recessed lights the same size.

[EDITED: I missed the part about the LED strips. How bright are those?]

Not up on 2014 Title 24 but if you can still comply by having the GU24 fixtures, a decent lighting shop ought to be able to re-wire most any fixture that takes a standard incandescent to GU24 for a nominal fee. Thinking of your pendants here. I did not learn this until I had already spent many hours unsuccessfully searching for compliant fixtures that I liked.

Our kitchen is a similar size to yours. We have 8 4" LED cans, 2 pendants, and 5 downlight sconces (relamped to GU24) on the perimeter where we do not have upper cabinets. LED UCL in the one area where we do have uppers. When all of the lights are on full (rare), it is much more than enough light.

Good luck!

This post was edited by Oaktown on Thu, Nov 20, 14 at 12:15

Doesn't seem like too many lights to me. I'd try to lay them out in a more regular pattern. And I know that it's contrary to conventional wisdom, but I wouldn't make put the light over the sink on a separate circuit - better for a single circuit to illuminate the perimeter counters, including the sink. Seems to me that the separate circuit for the sink is an anachronism from back when all kitchen light came from the center of the room &/or recessed lights were all incandescent/inefficient, and therefore it was expensive to turn on more than necessary. But when you place lights over the edge of the counter like this, and given the minimal energy needs of modern LEDs, it just doesn't make sense to have a separate swith for the sink.

But if you must have a separate switch for the sink, be sure to include two lights, one on each side of the sink, to minimize shadows.

Thanks Oaktown and GauchoGordo for your feedback!

Oaktown, that is great to know about having fixtures switched to GU24. I didn't realize that. That expands the pendant options tremendously.

Regarding removing red lights - the reason I put them there is based on the wisdom I read on the lighting forum that one should place cans roughly at the edge of the counter when you have upper cabinets, to avoid casting shadows into your work area. People seem to do this even when they have UCL.

Our thought with this plan was that the red lights and green lights would be used in different modes:
The common arrangements would be
a) work - red lights, island pendants, under counter light
b) dining/play - green, pendants, and maybe ucl for atmosphere

Does this seem reasonable?

GauchoGordo, I agree it would be nice if the lighting pattern were more regular. Any thoughts on how I could achieve that while still getting functional lighting?

If you have good UCL that you use, that should eliminate shadows from overhead lights behind you (since the shadow is just the absence of light). And don't forget, your vent hood presumably will have lights too. I don't know about the CR4 but our 4" LEDs are very bright.

[Here I will add a disclaimer that I am biased against having lots of holes in the ceiling and had to be talked into adding cans in our house.]

I'd love to see a picture of your kitchen if you have one, Oaktown!

BTW what did you use for UCL in that one area where you have uppers?

I would use a more regular pattern and try to keep to a consistent size. Your spacing may be too tight in some areas (upper right) for even 4" units with 102" ceilings.... and definitely so for 6" units.

The other advantage to using more cans is that it increases your high efficiency wattage, and lets you have more freedom in selecting your low efficiency pendants, sconces and chandeliers. As you know. you must first sum up your can wattage (e.g 9.5W x 15 4" cans in your plan), add your UCL wattage, and then apply the kitchen "bonus" if you use dimmers/motion sensors. It appears you may have as much as 230W to 280W in low efficiency wattage to apply to your more decorative fixtures.

We have LED UCL but appreciate the recessed lighting for general lighting. I would say these are on the most often -- on dimmers -- but ironically the decorative pendants are rarely used because the light tends to be more supplementary rather than primary. But, most of our work occurs on a central island -- not on the perimeters, except for the range and the sink.

In summary I would make sure your grid near the island is complete -- your general distance between the green rows is pretty far. You might consider a more regular grid of 4 across.

Here's one way to do it

thedinos -- for the UCL we used an LED panel that they sold me on in the lighting store. I put a link below, very happy thus far but it only has been a couple of months. I wish it was available in other finishes but it very low profile so pretty inconspicuous anyway.

I only have this older photo that shows some of the ceiling. The 8 cans are laid out in a square [EDIT: rectangle] (the pendants would be in the center of the grid). No lights are on in this photo. Our ceilings are higher than yours, though, I don't know whether that would suggest more cans or fewer?

Here is a link that might be useful: Edge-lit luminaires

This post was edited by Oaktown on Thu, Nov 20, 14 at 15:36

Oaktown, Your kitchen is gorgeous!!! Did you post more photos somewhere else? Are are your light sconces Title 24 compliant, or did you weight them out with the cans and ucl? Can you share where you found them? Sorry to hijack the thread - I am in this exact spot of planning too. :)

Red, hope you are enjoying the planning!

The down lights are the Visual Comfort/Circa Lighting Boston library sconces that seem to be pretty popular, the lighting store re-lamped them to GU24 at I am thinking $15/socket? Not sure whether that was the price with or without the contractor's discount. Before learning about the re-lamping service I was feeling pretty frustrated because it seems that most of the off-the-shelf compliant options tend to be modern in style. Through the sub the fixtures ended up being cheaper than anything comparable I could find on the Internet, and I looked for a long time.

Oaktown - Thank you!

Huge thank you for the layout, GauchoGordo! This layout makes sense to me.

And Oaktown, your kitchen is beautiful!! I love the paneling and the VC fixtures.

thedinos, I like what GauchoGordo suggested for you, but please check your joist placement before you get too set a layout for the cans. I say this from experience -- our kitchen was easy but we had to do lots of fiddling in another room.

Also, will your cabs go to the ceiling? If so plan in advance so that your cans have sufficient distance from trim, etc. Also from experience -- we cut back some trim at our vent hood to give a can some breathing space. Not so simple to eliminate the can at that point, would have needed to plate it or pay for additional electrical work. (Ironic since we added the ceiling treatment to distract from the cans)

Good luck!

Hi Oaktown - yes, DH is going to be checking joist placement relative to this plan.

My cabs will go to the ceiling. Our cans will be sufficiently far away from the crown on top that I think we'll be ok.

Thank you again!