LED will be the standard though they are slightly pricier at this point. They come in all color temperatures. CFLs are a sort of medium term option for most general lighting solutions.

I agree I use LEDs in all my projects and am slowly changing all my pot lights at home. The bulbs are expensive but last almost forever and can be ordered on-line for some price savings. I have had halogens forever I haven't used an incandescent bulb anywhere for at least 15 yrs any whey never did like the yellow cast at night that changed how all my colors looked.

I don't want that blue cast... it makes me feel cold so am trying to find something warmer looking.

LEDs come in all sorts of what is called temperatures you have only seen the cool ones there are some that actually look like natural daylight. Go to a store that knows about them and has all the options lit up.

Is that a pic from a store site or does it have the specs for each color?

Try going to a big box store. Buy four LED bulbs with different color temperatures. Take them home, put them in, pick the one you like best. Exchange the rest on the next trip to big box store.

good plan, apple-pie. Thanks.

Best way to choose .

I do not allow CFL bulbs to be used in my house. I use halogen or incandescent bulbs but I'm looking forward to the new induction bulbs.

If you're willing to cough up the money for them the Philips Hue led bulbs can be adjusted to whatever color you want ( controlled by iPad of iPhone). You can also adjust the whites to a pretty endless variety of color temperatures.

*chuckles* That assumes I use those phones. I'm almost an analog...still have the old flip top that barely takes pictures. Hence my reluctance for change. I just found out yesterday that there are actually bulbs made especially for ceiling fans (something about reducing vibration?). I like the sunnier, warmer color of the incandescent so I'll see what I can find that comes closest to that. I imagine it is just what I'm used to but at my age, I'm more than use to it; it's totally ingrained. :)

I use incandescents in most fixtures, but I'm planning on getting Edisons for my LR, DR & both Bedrooms.

Not a fan of flourescents, but have them in my basement.
No CFL's or LED's for me.

I think the best way to make decisions is to go to a specialty lighting/electrical store and have them walk you through your options. This is where you can see most of the choices at one place and get good advice. It makes a difference to see things and most of these places have good displays - they are also much more knowledgeable than the big box stores. While they have come a long way, LED lights still make everything look very 'flat' and undimensional. High resolution photography with LED lights is still a big challenge.

Maybe my best bet is to just start hoarding incandescents and wait for technology to figure out the rest. I wouldn't even be considering changing except I keep hearing that incandescents are being phased out.

Ok, I just spent a lot and time and $ on this same issue. What i learned for bulb color is to look on the lighting box and there usually is a spectrum that goes from usually 2700k to about 6500k and often there is a picture going from yellow towards blue. The higher the number, the more blue(or daylight) the color looks. So, I wanted a clean white (not yellow) without blue and settled on 3000k for my tastes. 5000k is blue on my white walls, especially at night. Old incandescent bulbs are closer to soft whites down in the 2700k range. As far as I can tell, this holds true whether the bulb is led or halogen or incandescent. Led are less expensive to run but currently cost more upfront. Prices have been falling all year on them (27$ bulbs I bought last year are 10 to 15$ now). I am a homeowner and this is just what I have figured out by buying new lights for my renovation. Good luck!

You can still buy incandescents. I was just at the HD yesterday and there were plenty of them. So no need to hoard them. The rule was that if you were going to continue to make and sell them they needed to be more efficient. So now they are mostly halogen incandescent and are a little bit pricier than the old incandescent bulbs were.

I have switched myself. The colors, as DeCocco says, are much better than they used to be. As Patricia says above, your other colors stay truer now.

Charts like these are all over the web.

I have replaced most of mine with "Soft White." The "Daylight" is very blue - as a bright sunny day outside. The Soft White is like the 2700 on this chart. I also like the "Bright White" for bathrooms. That is the 3000 on this chart. I think anything higher than 3000 is too cool (blue) for what I like in residential applications.

Good luck!

Thank you! I knew I was still seeing them in stores but the subject came up yesterday (again) and I figured Houzzers would be the ones "in the know". Thank you sooo much for proving me right about that at least!

In canada the incandescents are gone.

@ Patricia....how long have they been unavailable? I'd guess you can order them if you need...right?