Well, I guess you could call it a fixture. It definitely isn't a can light, but it's not for everyone, and doesn't do much for me at night. Hence the pendants:

Layering in lighting is a good thing.

When you bring up single light fixture, and bright enough, I think of fluorescent light boxes.

Seriously though, a single light source will create shadows, which can be difficult to work with in a kitchen.

If you can give more information about the area to be lit and expand on what your lighting goals are exactly, I think it would be helpful.

This is a photo of our old kitchen in the middle of demo. The island had been removed. We had this single light fixture over the island with 2 100 Watt bulbs. We still had to have 2 cans over the sink area. We also had hideous flourescent light boxes for undercabinet lighting.

I hated having a single light source, so that's where I am coming from. We did have it on a dimmer, but for prepping I needed the full strength. Then it would glare in everyone's eyes and create shadows on the periphery counters.

{{!gwi}}

DM, we're not putting cans in our kitchen reno (currrently under construction) We have vaulted ceilins and the positioning of the cans would have been less than ideal.

We were worried about having too many shadows, but believe we've come up with enough creative lighting to balance out any shadows.

We're putting in one Chandelier, 6 arm in the center of the room, a double light fixture over the sink, 2 sconces on the sides of our cabinets flanking a large window, and under cabinet lights. I'll see if I can get a copy of our lighting layout posted so you can see it.

We're about a month away from having the final light fixtures installed so we could be totally wrong, but we think we're going to have plenty of light.

If I remember correctly, there was someone that recently posted a finished kitchen that only had fixtures in thier new space as well...I'll see if I can find the post.

~ D ~

We're also not using cans, although honestly I'm really struggling with lighting---it's hard! We decided to go with three 150W schoolhouse fixtures for an 18' x 13' room centered down the middle of the room, against the recommendation of the two period lighting shops we were looking at. (Both recommended a single large fixture in the center of the room, and I just couldn't see how that would be enough light, especially since they both use 2W/sf as the kitchen rule-of-thumb, so the center fixture would need 3-4 sockets.) I may be regretting this soon, though! We will also have two pendants over our sink and prep area and one pendant over our table, but that's it. I am waiting to order the shades till they're in, though, in case we want to focus or diffuse light with bigger or smaller shades.

I have some of these with GU24 sockets over my work areas, but they are kinda cans. More cans than actual cans, really:
{{!gwi}}

Here is a link that might be useful: light store

These lights won't work for most but I used old Porcelier fixtures. My kitchen is roughly 22x13. I used this one on the end with no cabinets/kitchen activities

This one is in the center of the using part of the kitchen

I have 4 under cab strips and two lights in the range hood. The first time I had them all on I thought OVERKILL! But now that I've used them a bit, I'm glad I went with so many lights. It's like daylight at night. I'm more likely to work in the kitchen later into the evening. Hence the "fluffier" comment in another thread.

Great, thanks so much! Good ideas.

We'll have soffits, just because MAJOR plumbing is in it and not removable. Those hang over/out as far as lower cabinets, so we'll have very few uppers. We're installing small cans in said soffit, so all the counters will have direct lighting over it. Then, in the middle of the kitchen I'd like a few lights, maybe semi flush mounted fixtures or something. I was thinking drum shade, but I am not sure.

Pinch Me, I adore your light fixtures. I have one in the attic and as soon as I get a flashlight I will be bringing it down to replace with my kitchen overhead light. Here is a photo of another of my attic finds...This one will go on our porch, to the left of the door leading to our kitchen.
{{!gwi}}

We have 3 pendants in our kitchen. The under cab lighting adds hugely to overall lighting. No shadows. No problems with not enough lighting for prep work.

lpalta, I have a few of that kind, too, with nowhere to put them! I only have two sets and the rest don't match each other but I'd use them together if I had the space. I hope eventually "they" come out with some really nice energy saving bulbs. The reproduction bulbs are a bit Pricey!

Maybe these can help with ideas.
~boxer
Kitchen Reno This old house

Ahearn Blue Kitchens BD

Brooke Giannetti Uses Lights above the cabs

From Jeris Clippins on GW

Old House Journal

Tech Lighting

Beach House

Cotetexas

No pictures yet, but our lighting scheme is similar to what artemis has chosen, also in a long narrow room (11x25) except that where she has pendants we chose sconces: 3 150W schoolhouse semi-flush fixtures down the center of the room, three sconces pointed down to the counters in work areas, and two sconces in the eating nook. (One of the schoolhouse lights is close to the table, too.) There's also a bit of undercabinet light, in the one stretch where we have uppers. And the vent hood has two halogens.

Given that the schoolhouse shades diffuse the light quite a bit, and that our sconces top out at 60W, I'm thinking it'll be adequate but not great. I wish I could have found sconces I liked with a higher wattage limit.

I kept my fluorescents (one a large box - horrors of horrors for some), added 3 pendants over the sink, and added undercab lighting (flourescent). I like light. I don't like heat - cans and some undercounter options add heat. My kitchen is small and doesn't need extra heat.

We are exploring adding more light to our kitchen. We have cans but the top 1/3rd of the kitchen still appears too dark to us.

We've been looking at Access Lighting's Nido line. They are very contemporary lights so may not meet your needs

Here is a link that might be useful: Google search for Nido Lights

Our kitchen won't have any cans, a choice I have at times regretted -- it's not easy coordinating the need for seven different light fixtures with different purposes! Currently we have one large fixture in the middle of the room (which has four bulbs) and will have four smaller ones around it, plus a pendant over the sink and another random one for light near a closet.

Here's a similar look from Elle Decor:

One of our goals was to make a good kitchen for old age and another was heat efficiency.

We have no interest in can lights--are trying to keep heat out of the attic area because of winter snow plus we're trying to cut glare from overhead to keep room from being nonwelcoming. We've put two 3-bulb Besa mottled white glass ceiling lights in the center of white ceiling plus a number of matching 2-bulb units along the accompanying L-shaped walkway to front door. The Besa globes are on collars with screw off threads, not requiring us to mess with clips while standing on ladders. We put 3 + 2 pendants over the parallel work surfaces and two pair of undercounter lights on the other two walls, plus there's a range hood light. Lots of lighting, but it's a large space, relatively speaking, and we don't light the entire space all the time unless we have guests.

The pendants in front of the front windows are a feature of the external as well as internal lighting.

Yes, it's not standard. We don't have regrets, except that the cab door can smack the closeby pendant globe--too bad the window is too close to the cab. (There are plastic bumpers to prevent damage. )

Sorry, don't have a photo with the pendants plus ceiling lights, but you can click on this photo and then go to the right through Flickr and eventually you'll see pendants alone and you can use your imagination to merge the lighting concepts.

It was important to us to do a kitchen without can lights because we live in a traditional house and wanted a traditional kitchen to match it. Here are a couple pics:

We decided against it for three reasons: a) wasn't really in the budget, frankly! b) small kitchen (11x12'? now can't remember dimensions but I think that's it!) so light fixtures can go a longer way, and c) our house is old too - 1913 - and I like to be period appropriate whenever i can get away with doing so - or for the most part anyway. So I thought it was perfectly fitting to go without them.

We have under-cab lights for ambiance and task, one long pendant cloth-covered cord light above the sink (or soon will; the one there isn't one we're keeping, and ours will have a white glass cone shade - not bare bulb), and a semi-flush-mounted schoolhouse much like the ones in Jm Seattle's (above pic) only possibly bigger? Hard to tell from pics. I think ours is 14". It can take up to 300 W bulbs - not that we need all that light coming out of one fixture. Oh and the stove's hood has lights too. So really I think that's enough for our little room, much as the canned lights always seemed to give off a high-end sort of remodeled look! ;) Here's a pic of our almost-finished kitchen which shows mostly the ceiling main light and the under-cab lights prior to lightrail being added to hide the lights under there: