Please post a larger photo of your layout. I wanted mine all on one switch, but that is personal choice and how you think you will use them. If you have a couple that you would use to highlight certain areas for ambiance, put those on a second switch so you can turn just those on. I just went through this. You need to go to a lighting showroom and see what you like in UC lights. Pucks vs florescent, energy efficiency and less heat generated vs. the looks of pucks. No one can tell you what you like or which is more important to you. If you go florescent for UC lights consider getting recessed lights that can use CF bulbs so the type of lighting is the same and they look good together when they are both on. Try not to mix white, blue and yellow lighting, florescent and incandescent. You will see the different colors of the lights.

Sue

I agree with Sue. We need a bigger picture, and going to a lighting store will be time well spent. I went to two, and between the two different salespeople I managed to get good, clear advice and direction. We stuck with Halogen, Xenon lighting as we wanted to be able to dim all our lights. But which colour light you prefer is definitely a personal choice.

Just from the pic you have, it looks like you are missing recessed lighting on the other side of your room. I have all my recessed on one switch (3-way so can turn on from both ends), and on a dimmer.

We haven't installed the UC lighting yet, but have Xenon, cuz it's supposed to bring out highlights in the granite?

Whereas I chose florescent. I used Juno recessed lights with dimable fluorescents in them, and have them all on one one switch with the dimmer. UC lights will be florescent on a single switch. My over sink is a pendant with a round, decorative fluorescent bulb in it. I wanted less heat and energy efficiency. FYI, if you decide to go fluorscent, make sure you get the proper dimmer, and try to avoid buying the bulbs from the lighting store. My dimmable fluorescent bulbs were 28.00 each at the lighting store, and 8.00 each from the electric company.

The halogen and xenon give nice light and are nice small pucks, but get hotter, cost more and are less energy efficient.

Pros and cons to each.

Sue

Sue, where did you purchase your dimmable floures's? Are they screw in type bulbs?

Thanks

Yes, they are screw in. This is what they are:

This is them in the lights, although the trim on the light has not been installed yet. You can see the CFL if you look closely:

And this is the bulb in my sink pendant. I may see if they have a smaller size. It is also a compact fluorescent :

I purchased the ones for the recessed lights from Connecticut Light and Power "Smart Living Center", which is an energy efficient "store" for customers of CL&P. Check with your local electric company to see if they sell any "energy star" items or CSF bulbs. Many do, and they are usually significantly less expensive than lighting stores. However, most limits the number of bulbs you can buy per year, but I have never needed more than my limit. Where do you live? Do a search for "smart living center" and your state or electric company and see if you come up with any thing. You can always call them.

Sue

Thanks sue, I am trying to find 100 watt CFL dimmables and am having a difficult time finding them. I don't know if anyone makes them. Do you know?

I just went through with this, so I can give some info.

Recessed lights come in two parts; cans and trims. You need to find out what cans work for your situation and what kind of trims go with these cans that you like. If you are not too picky, there are actually lots of options.

Can type depends on your ceiling situation. Can you access the ceiling from the roof or do you have to install it from under the ceiling. There are different kinds for these two situations and they are called new construction and remodeling respectively. They also come in a casing with no limitations as to how close the insulation can come to the can and if you can, I would go with these. Last they also have cans that only accept fluorescent bulbs and if you have code restrictions, the other kinds all count as incandescent and don't count towards your fluorescent wattage.

In your case you can probably go with the regular 6" cans (they looked too big to me for our small space, so we went with 5") They have the largest selection of trims for this size. If you have 8' ceilings, to have them 4' apart would be sufficient, I think. You don't need one for the stove, since your hood will most likely have a nice light.

Your cans should be 18-30" away from the upper cabinets (for 12' upper and 24" base cabinets). This rules applies for any walls they maybe near by, as well, if you want to avoid glare. Closer than 18", they start generating glare. Further than 30", your head will be between the light and the counter and you will have a shadow on the counter. This of course is a function of your room's dimensions and your height. The cans come on sliders, so if you opened the ceiling, you can experiment with it. I'd say 30" maybe even too far for a tall person, but I read that number somewhere. So, maybe 24". A lot of this will be dictated by how your joists are running.

The trims come in different fashions; baffled, reflector, etc. Some are adjustable, so some people put them right above their head standing in front of the counter and adjust it towards the counter not to get glare or shadows. I think this is overkill. Properly positioned recessed lights are general lighting and don't need to be pointed in a direction, IMO. As for the static types (baffle, reflector etc.) you really need to go to a lighting store and see the light quality. It is a personal choice. Use the proper size bulb when you check them out, sometimes the people in the store put random size bulbs and you can't see what the trim's effect is.

As for the brands, Halo is sold in big box stores, so in my experience individual lighting stores won't carry them. It is apparently cheaper than Juno and some other fancy ones and is quite adequate, if you are not into the lighting brand name trends. However, at Lowe's you can only see the baffles that are on display. If you like one of those then no problem, but finding help to look at others will be a problem and they only carry a limited selection of the baffles. A lighting store will carry Juno or some other good brand and you will get personal attention, but it is more expensive. They have more trims on display. I went to a lighting store and looked at their wide variety of Juno baffles, decide what type I like in general and then bought Halo trims that were similar.

Oh, apparently you can't necessarily mix and match cans and trims from company to company.

We also decided to put two 4" cans on top of our sink as there are no upper cabinets on top (so no undercabinet lights either) and I wanted our sink to be bright. We centered them on the sink, so 12" from the wall. I've seen this done in other kitchens, too, when there is no pendant on top of the sink, but often times people will put pendants. I like the look of the pendants, but there were going to be too many pendants in my small kitchen.

For smaller size cans, the cans come at line or low voltage, line being 110V and low being 12V. 12V fixtures are more expensive and cannot be on the same dimmer as line voltage fixtures.

I don't have as much information on the UC lights. Some come swingable, I guess this is to avoid glare. Our KD drew them 3" in from the sides of the uppers, so 36" fluorescent for a 42" cabinet. With fluorescents, T4 (1/2" tube)) and T5 (5/8") usually come in slimmer fixtures and are better hidden, but there is better bulb selection with T8's (1"). I still don't know what fixtures to get. As for the bulbs, you want them as close to complete light as possible. There is a rating for this. I believe it is called CRI. 100 being the most complete, most modern tubes come at 82+, I couldn't find anything in the 90's. Then there is the "temperature" of the bulb, which is not a function of how hot it gets. It refers to the color of light it provides. 2700K is a warm yellow, 3000K cooler, I believe 5200K is close to daylight. The cooler colors are associated with the sickly fluorescent fixtures from the past but this sickly effect is apparently only a function of how complete the light spectrum is. I actually prefer the warmer lights, probably for the same psychological reason. Perhaps somebody can help me here, too, for a good quality, slim UC fluorescent fixture.

Your UC lights should be closer to the front edge of the cabinet to be better hidden and not to generate a funny glare effect on your backsplash. Make sure to order appropriately recessed cabinets and/or extra molding to hide the UC's.

The switch is a personal preference. Just think about how you will use the room and different scenarios and you can decide.

I am looking at your lighting plan now briefly. Is it a fridge on the very right side that is sticking forward? If that is the case, the can in front will be too close and will generate glare. It seems also too close to the side wall. Then, I think you have a can right above your range (if I am reading your plans correctly). You can eliminate that. I would draw a line up (on paper) from the one to the right of that and a line to the right from the one on top of the dishwasher and put a can at the intersection for general lighting (some people care how their recessed lights are distributed in the ceiling). Are you going to have any pendants? How about over the breakfast nook?

Ok, long assay here. I hope this helps.

Pinar

Pinar, thank you thank you. I have saved your post to my clippings. I had been hoping to get a mini education on recessed lighting and had even stopped by a good lighting store.... asked on the lighting forum...so your post is amazing!(recessed lighting for dummies)

Everyone needs are different, and I have dark cabinets and like a lot of light, but I can't imagine wanting flood lights that bright with all my other lighting unless I had really high ceilings, like 10 or 12 feet. But that is just me. I have a 14 x 16 foot kitchen with 7.5 foot ceilings and probably won't ever use all the light I have at the same time. I have recessed ceiling lights along the cabinets, and do wish I had included one above the refrig. and the pantry for task lighting, but would not really have wanted to highlight the refrig. anyway, so perhaps its better I didn't. I also will have uc fluorescents, a pendant over the sink and a large center ceiling light with 3 bulbs in it. Anyway, if you do have high ceilings or really want/need that much light from the recessed lights, they do make a 90 watt:

But some people really just do not like Fluorescents and don't mind/care how much electricity they use, and that is OK, too. I don't personally like halogen because of the heat generated, but some people love them. I didn't want butter melting on my counters or in my canbinets under the pucks but to be honest I liked the looks of them better.

If you really want high intensity light and are still considering flurouscent, you can do some research to see if another manufacturer makes CFL'S in 100watt or greater equivalents in R30 bulbs. I just knew about the GE ones because that is what I am using.

Also, as long as you get recessed fixtures that can take R30 bulbs you can always change the bulbs in them and other lights later away from or back to the CFLs. The only problem is that the color of light won't match the UC lights if you don't put in the matching type of fixture there.

Sue

I paid the electricians thousands for this job. They apparently saved themselves $20 total by installing cans that are only rated to take a 65 watt bulb max. I have a couple spots where I need more light (due to my own design errors). I would happily have paid for cans that could take 100 watts.

Do you all know what your cans are rated for? If you put in too bright a bulb, you can burn out the can.

I'll be looking into those dimmable fluorescents.

Pinar, thanks. That's a classic post.

A big lighting store near me does a free seminar in their lighting lab. It was really amazing and changed the way I look at my home.

Forgot to say, one rule for kitchens is to have three separately controlled dimable light sources. For me that's ceiling, undercounter, and accent. I love altering the mood in the kitchen area with these.

"Your cans should be 18-30" away from the upper cabinets (for 12' upper and 24" base cabinets). This rules applies for any walls they maybe near by, as well, if you want to avoid glare. Closer than 18", they start generating glare. Further than 30", your head will be between the light and the counter and you will have a shadow on the counter."

I just thought I would mention that I got different advise than pinar about the spacing of the recessed lights from the upper cabinets. My kitchen installer specified that the electrician install them as close to the upper cabinets molding as possible . I asked him to move them out from the upper moldings just a few inches for aesthetic reasons and they work very well that way. If they were 18-30" beyond the upper cabinets, they would be behind me when I stood at the counter and not provide good lighting over the counter. I wonder if pinar, you might have meant 24-30 from the wall? Then they would still light the counter you are working at which generally extends 25 1/2" from the wall and backsplash.

WARNIING: You have to have a dimmer that is compatible with dimmable fluorescents. I believe most, but not all, are. Check with the place you purchased the dimmer from. I know I specified I wanted to be able to use these bulbs and the lighting salesperson had to look up each dimmer to check. Some were OK and some were not. Also, you should get the correct size can for them. They only come in certain sizes, and I believe mine are 5" to fit these, not 6". Anyway, this is why I went to a lighting store for these so everything worked together properly and could use the types of bulbs I wanted. If you are not sure about your equipments compatibility certainly try replacing just one bulb first and use them for at least a day or two before investing in enough bulbs to replace all of them. I put regular incandescent bulbs in my fixtures for a couple of weeks until my R30 bulbs came and they kept tripping the circut breaker in the light and they would take turns going out for periods of time. I would hate to order a bunch of those at 8-30.00 each and find out they don't work for you. Also make sure they are returnable, first.

Also, only the "new work" cans have that slider on them, and require the ceiling to be opened up. If you ask for "old work" (my electricians terms to tell the lighting store) cans, they can be installed BEFORE the cabinets but without opening up the ceiling, possibly saving a lot of labor and money in patching and repairing the ceiling. They do need to be installed in the correct spot from the beginning, though. My kitchen cabinet installer gave me a simple drawing of my cabinet layout with the exact measurements of where the CENTER center of each recessed light should be to fall exactly at the center of that upper cabinet, by how many inches from the it should be from the from the outside wall and how many inches from the wall the cabinets would be hung on. After the cabinets went in they were perfectly placed and she was very happy when she saw them. She said she has seen them poorly done before when are not placed properly and it can not easily be changed once the cabinets are in. Again, then you WOULD have to open the ceiling and do patching and everything. An expensive and messy mistake. Many people live with poorly done lights afterwards because of what is involved in fixing them.

Sue

janwad -- if you need brighter light in a fixture that takes 65 watt incandescent, a compact fluorescent can give you the extra light without exceeding the wattage. In other word, get a CFL flood that gives you equivalent light to 100watts and you won't be going anywhere near 65 watts of electrical power (it will probably use less than 30 watts) -- and won't burn out the bulbs like you would with incandescents.

Our entire kitchen (except the UC) are now CFL -- the chandelier, the floods and the mini-floods. I can see so much better and use 1/3 of the electricity or less...because I don't need to light up the entire kitchen anymore to cook. I can just light up my task areas.

Cameron

Sue,
I was very worried about the shadow effect from my head in between the counters and the light, too. This is why I kept telling the electrician and DF (dear fiance?) to put them closer to the cabinets. The electrician showed me the glare the would cause on a wall (the cabinets were not there). I tried the lights on at different distances from the uppers with a mock counter in front of me where there would have been one (24"deep, 36" high). Basically, the lower cabinets stick out 12" more than the uppers and you stand about another 6" away, so if you put the recessed lights 18" from the uppers, they are right on top of you and you can even put them a little further yet without creating a shadow (it helps if you are shorter for obvious geometrical reasons).

So, no, the numbers I gave were from the uppers, not from the walls.

But, clearly, the way people work can be very different from each other. I maybe leaning back and someone else might be hunching over more. So, it is best to try a mock scenario. You can try to use a flat battery operated light in the ceiling, standing in front of a mock counter and experiment with the distance.

Again, you will have less freedom in this than you may have thought, because of joist restrictions, so make sure to find a range of distances that you would be happy with, not an exact number, because when the electrician comes and tells you that what you want is not possible, you don't want to freak out!! LOL

I hope this helps.

I am glad my ramblings were any help to anyone at all. I should have added, my only experience in this is from doing our own kitchen's lighting plan recently. While i did try to do a lot of research for this, please take it as a guideline to start your own research rather than take it as an absolute solution. I may have not known better about this and that and besides, there is never an absolute solution. When I started looking into this, I thought I didn't even know where to start and it was frustrating. So, I hope someone can use it as a starting point, but I am by no means a professional.

Thanks for the kind words and good luck!

Pinar

Also, I forgot to mention that I read somewhere people wre complaining about the hot spots that the recessed were generating on their countertops, when they put them right in front of the uppers. This was another reason I was convinced to try greater distances from the uppers.

Honestly, I don't think this would have bothered me, but at the time I was so clueless, I was noting down every issue with every placement.

Pinar

A good electrician can put recessed lights ALMOST anywhere you want. The only time it can't be done is if there is a ceiling joist right exactly where you want the light. The "old work" or remodeling lights do not get attached to the joists and can be placed anywhere. If wires need to be strung across joists without taking down the ceiling, they actually have drills with bits several feet long that allows them to drill through studs and joists and thread the wires through them to the spot the light needs to be. However, the longer it takes, the more specialized and expensive the equipment the electrician might need to get do it, (like a drill bit 4' or longer) the bigger the chance some, esp. small indpendent electricians might not be able to do it, since they might not want to invest in that type of equipment if they rarely find the need for it. Also, the longer it takes and the more specialized equipment needed, the more expensive it can get. So try several electricians if you run into problems, and look for one that does a lot of remodeling work. The electrician doing my work is young, early 20s, just a baby really, but he has already done about 30 kitchen remodels and that baby has tools. :) He pulled out a 4' bit and made short work of it, and explained how some of the ceiling stuff is done and why certain equipment is needed.

Sue

Well, because of the with of the can, the center of where the light is going to be can skip more than 6" because of a joist. As, in, say you can put it at 12" distance, but not 13, 14, 15, 16 etc. the next thing you can do maybe as far as 18" or more. When you are dealing with such a short range to begin with, 6" out of it can be quite big, that's why I said you don't have that much flexibility. You can have them butt up against the joist, but not on it. And no baby electrician is going to change that, but it sounds good to have one at home anyway! :)

Pinar