I don't think you'll be able to tell much difference between 2700 and 2900, unless side by side. When you get up to 3500 and above, your eye will notice the difference. I personally prefer the warmth of 2700, but I'm an old school incandescent purist ;)

I thought I wanted 2700 but DH says light should be white, so we put in 3000. 2900 might be nice.

YMMV, but yes, I could see the difference. My new recessed 6" cans went in last week, and the contractor provided sample bulbs of 2700, 3000, 3500, and 5000, as well as the standard incandescent. He installed them all side by side, and put in a trial dimmer. Then we compared all the bulbs at full brightness and at varying levels of dimming. I wanted to see what happened to the appearance of the sample white cabinet doors and sample granite.

In my space here (YMMV), it was immediately clear that the 5000 temp lights were the best. They gave a nice white daylight look that I prefer and stayed white even at 80% dimmed. It was really interesting to see the differences side by side. To my eyes, everything looked as yellow as the incandescent, even the 3500, except the 5000.

So, in the end I think it's sort of like chocolate and vanilla in the sense that you may like one better, even though both are good. Many here have said how much they prefer the yellow light to the white light, just a preference, both are good.

I definitely could tell the difference between 2700 and 3000 at the lighting display in the store. My recessed ceilings are 3000 (love) but the over the sink pendant has a 2700 bulb and I can easily see the difference there too.
My 60ish year old eyes seem to appreciate the 3000k.

Can/should you mix them? If I went with 2900k for UCLs, should I stay at that spectrum?

My local Lowe's store has a display that shows 2700, 3000, on up to 5000. There is definitely a difference each step of the way.

We have track lighting in our very long (25'+) front hall. The contractor put in 4000 bulbs and wow, it's awful! The color is blue-white. But I don't like the yellow color of the "warm" bulbs either, so something in between. You really have to compare them yourself, because everyone reacts differently, plus they look different depending on the fixture, paint colors, etc.

I have warm LED's in my kitchen and compact warm fluorescents in the adjacent open family room . I don't notice the lighting difference but my sister and son, who are photographers, are forever commenting on the difference and want me to change to one color on the lights. So probably best not to mix them.

I know that the 4000-5000 is more of a daylight, true color light (the Ott-lamps use a similar color), but are just too blue for my corrupted taste, which associates incandescent bulbs with home and warmth and cool fluoresent bulbs with commercial sites. So it really is a personal taste.

The type of lighting and even each manufacturer's bulb with the same K will look different, so you really have to check the brands out individually. I would not want someone else selecting my lighting. I also think it needs to be blended with the rest of the home. Having the kitchen cool white fluorescent with the rest of the house warm is an unpleasant contrast, imo.

3000K is too bright, cool and fluorescent looking for me. That is a halogen based standard bulb, Eco Vantage. I have 5000K LED work lights and it is also bright, cool and fluorescent. Blinding. Harsh. Both of these wash out the paint color on the walls.

I've got 2700 warm CREE LED bulbs that are similar to incandescent but still a little off looking with the green and yellow but much better than CFL. Hate CFL lighting.

I think there is a huge difference between 2700 and 3000. I think 3000 might be daylight with no warm version available.

I like warm light.

This post was edited by snookums2 on Thu, Dec 12, 13 at 19:32

5000 is daylight.

http://www.seesmartled.com/kb/choosing_color_temperature/

Thanks for ur ideas. I ran to lowes with my bag of samples. I couldn't see much k difference other than the big difference between opposite ends of the spectrum. (Could be the 60+ yo eyes). So I bought several different k bulbs and will try them out in the 2 recessed housing we have. Thanks for the ideas.

My favorite color of bulbs is 3,000K as it is not stark, bright enough and not so yellow.

one other thing to keep in mind with lighting is the CRI or color rendering index. A higher CRI is going to give you more accurate color readings than a lower cri. sometimes it's not just the color of the light but the cri that has a big impact.

Thank you glenwood705 for this knowledge!

Glenwood, thanks for the reminder on CRI. I think the haefele strip lighting the cab ppl install is 2900k with a CRI of 85. If my memory hasn't failed me, I think that's a pretty good number (anything over 80?).

Raee, how's the mix of k's working out? I'm about ready to call it a day and just go with the cab ppl ucl strip lighting at 2900k and 3000k for recessed ceiling lights. I haven't found anywhere local where I could take another look at 2900k. I'm thinking the difference should be minimal.

I purchased a 2700k and a 3000k today to test out with my paint samples and proposed countertop stone. The 2700k seemed to have faded out the gray, but I'm not looking at this in the kitchen. I was disappointed that I bought the incorrect 3000k and it wouldn't fit in the spotlight can. So back to the store I go.

I'm trying my best to actually get color temp I like, right now convenience is leading the way.