Wow, you've only got 9" of space on one side of the hood and 12" on the other.

What will the backsplash/wall surface be like? Will it be a decorative surface that should be highlighted?

Yup, it's a problem.

Right now, no plans for anything behind the stove. If/when we do, it will be nothing more ornate than clear glass over the paint. I don't like to feel cramped, so I keep a pretty clean workspace, and in such a small alcove like this, we didn't want to visually clutter it up.

Can you think of anything creative?

(Oh, by the way, the lights on the other side of the kitchen are actually six inches ON CENTER from the front of the short-but-high cabinets - not four inches like I wrote before. I meant the edge of the circle is four inches away and realized most people talk about the center of the circle.)

Hi again. I've had a busy weekend.

I'm thinking that those cans over the range may come in handy if you use them, with aimable trims, to wash the walls with light. I'm still doubtful that they'll do a good job of lighting the counters. I'm also thinking that your counter space around the range is very limited. I have a small collection of stuff that permanently lives out in the open near my range - a few bottles of oil, a pepper grinder, a box of kosher salt. What if you had a subtle horizontal shelf along the back wall? Basically I'm imagining a wooden box, a couple of inches high with a glass top and an open bottom, with a chain of xenon bulbs hidden inside. The box could be painted to match the wall, and would quietly echo the strong horizontal lines of the hood. It would provide extra light, and would also give you a place to set useful and/or decorative items close at hand without being in your way when cooking.

I'm also thinking you should experimentally stick a light bulb of the sort you'll be using for these recessed lights into some sort of hand-held or clip-on fixture, and play with it to get a sense of what it will look like when they're positioned 4" from a surface (quite close), or when their light is bounced off a wall or aimed into a corner.

The lights on the sink side of the kitchen (across from the alcove) are not in the traditional position (over counter edge) for two reasons: first, because I cannot stand a hot light beating down directly on my head, and second, because we figured (erroneously? too severely?) that closer would be fine because of the very short cabinets that they sit in front of. Perhaps I should re-think this?

I like your idea of the shelves. I don't keep much of anything on my counters besides a little bowl of kosher salt and a pepper grinder (which actually has a place inside a cupboard but for the most part rather refuses to stay in its assigned parking spot) but I could definitely see your idea working and looking nice. We would probably have to wire for it right now (before the drywall goes in) because our wires will be VERY difficult to move later: our building is wired with heavy metal-encased wire (BX?) and I can't see "pulling" these heavy things much distance if drywall, metal studs, other heavy wire, and insulation is hampering everything. (I can barely corral them now.) Your idea is definitely a good one, though, and I think I will get the electrician back to give us that option. (Ahhh, at last, some solution that is actually, you know, solving something....) Really, truly, thank you.

Do you think pulling the two recessed lights out to be 24" away from the wall (lined up with counter edge) - or farther - would be helpful? I don't think this would annoy me (hot-lights-beating-down-on-head issue) because they would necessarily be to either side of me when I'm at the cooktop, BUT will it create glare on the hood? Or will it cut down the glare because they would no longer be right above the stainless? (If it makes a difference, the hood itself is flat - not curved - but the chimney is round stainless. Has anyone ever painted a chimney to match the wall? Would that just be odd?)

(Geez, you are fabulous.)

I'm skeptical that the 'hot light over your head' effect would be as bad as you imagine. I've had 50PAR20 halogen floods in my 8' kitchen ceiling for over a year, no A/C, am 6' tall and I don't notice any extra heat when standing directly under them. There are enough variables involved that I can't predict exactly what you'll see, but I don't think that the light will somehow miss the short upper cabinets. My lights are positioned about 11" O.C. from the soffits, use alzak trims and 40-degree beam angle bulbs, and the top of the scallop of light hits the soffit only about four or five inches down from the ceiling. My guess is that you'll have some very bright spots on those short uppers. Also, depending on how far the counter extends under them, you might find that the bottom of the short cabs casts a hard line of shadow towards the back of it; the closer the light is to the cabinet, the larger that area of shadow.

Don't thank me too profusely -- my little shelf idea may be more trouble than you realize. In real life I build custom furniture and I have some experience with product design - I've built prototype models for some consumer products you'd recognize, so I tend to come up with non-'off-the-shelf' ideas. The light shelf will be simple for a creative craftsperson to put together, but less open-minded tradesmen may go into some sort of mental gridlock at the suggestion. That said, the lights I'm thinking would be appropriate for it would be low-voltage xenon. There wouldn't be room for the transformer in the light shelf itself, so the wiring would have to come from the switch, into the back of a lower cabinet where you could hide the transformer, then back into the wall and up to the lights.

Pulling the lights flanking the range out to the counter edge would light the fronts of the counters, but I still think you'd have glare and shadow issues. Since you're already devoting a substantial chunk of time and effort grappling with this, it might be worth scavenging some refrigerator box cardboard, a roll of duct tape, an extension cord, a PAR light bulb and a fixture you can hold in your hand or clip to the ceiling, and just mock this up and play with different light postions and orientations.

I'm necessarily appreciative of anyone who tries that hard to think about a specific space and give thoughtful answers. And, I didn't specify an "easy" answer to my light issue, just an answer. I need another brain to toss around ideas. That is what the "fab" comment was. (If you could see our apartment and all the strange little solutions in the plans, then you'd know that I am so very ok with non-"off-the-shelf" ideas.)

Maybe I have unusually heat absorbing hair. I don't know, but when I'm in clothing stores and they have those spot lights, I have to quell the urge to whimper. (My husband is still surprised at how hot the top of my head feels in certain circumstances.) No, I don't have a bouffant, just a regular bob. Dunno why this is. But we are both relatively fearful that we will inadvertently render the kitchen unusable (with lights on, at least) by installing recessed lights. (The only direct experience that either of us has with recessed was when we lived in Denver and our rental had them: we ended up unscrewing the worst offenders - like the one over the coffeemaker - because neither of us could tolerate the obnoxious bugger. We are also hopeful that a dimmer switch might help the early morning lighting insurrections.)

I like the idea of a mock-up. It sounds necessary at this point.

Two questions:
1. Why does nobody use the glass circles over their recessed lights anymore?
My mom re-did her kitchen (many) years ago, with recessed somewhat randomly pock-marking the center area. I never noticed because I always flip the UC lights on to do anything, but they do provide general ambient. According to her, nobody thought very much about the location of them, and, according to her, of course you need the frosted glass circles (lenses?). Why don't people do this anymore? It seems to solve the whole looking-up-and-being-blinded problem. (I understand that I am foisting upon you the role of "light historian" with this question but I figured somebody somewhere might know the answer and maybe that somebody was maybe you...) Is it for the "drama" factor? Because I could understand how you get the "pools of light" with naked recessed that everyone (else) swoons for.

2. If we do the mock-up and find that the shadows on the counter below are fine/nonexistent, then is it the pronounced scallops on the cabinets that are considered so undesirable aesthetically and that is why people say we shouldn't do that? (And, I guess related to the first question, would the glass lenses mitigate this?)

Well, it's nice to be appreciated.

I think lighting for retail is typically several times brighter/hotter than the stuff used for residential task lighting, but I see that you've had problematic experiences with residential light, too. Did the rental have especially low ceilings, perchance?

Dimmers are very nice to have. My wife doesn't care so much about bright lights in the morning, but I can't stand them.

I don't have any solid knowledge of why recessed lighting has trended away from using glass lenses. I can speculate that they surely reduce the light output, raise the temperature inside the fixture and shorten bulb life, but perhaps the reason has more to do with fashion? I dunno.

Whether the bright light falling on the cabinet fronts is aesthetically acceptable is entirely up to you. I'm fine with them, especially if the pattern of lights has a comprehensible visual relationship to the pattern of cabinet doors. I am concerned that yours are so close, mostly because the closer the lights are to the cabs, the brighter that bright spot will be. If you halve the distance between fixture and cab, the bright spot will be roughly four times brighter.

Good info on retail versus residential. And yes, that ceiling in our old rental wasn't particularly tall.

Our lights will be evenly spaced from each other across the cabinet fronts. The cabinet fronts are not all the same width, though. (They will correspond to the widths of the base cabinets below them.) So the possibility of us achieving "comprehensible visual relationship to the pattern of cabinet doors" doesn't seem likely. I guess our only hope is that the doors are plain, white, flat front, slab doors. Huh.

I think we need to mock this part up, as well. (People who know me would not be so surprised to find that I will be spending a significant amount of the next week or so "mocking" things...)

[snort]

Have fun.