From others on here, I learned the advice to put a pair of lights/cans over the sink to minimize shadows, so that's what I did. Mine are also above a 36" sink and are about 24"-30" apart.

I like lots of lights, and I went with 6" LED cans (in a 10 ft ceiling), and I did lots of lights . . . so, I'd probably go with your GC's idea of putting the extra light in that corner, and then pushing the other one down the counter a bit.

Are you sure about the 4" cans? Will they give you enough light with as few as you have? How many lumens do the cans you have chosen give? The ones I'm using are 6" Cree LEDs and are about 625 lumens IIRC. That seems pretty good. I have those in 8 ft ceilings as well as the 10 ft, and I have them pretty darn close together and don't feel over lit (although I do have dimmers everywhere!)

Hmm, I don't know how many lumens these have. Good question, szruns!

We have 9 foot ceilings and while I want a well-lit kitchen, a too-bright kitchen hurts my head. So I'll need to figure out what we have now and how to achieve the same level of lumens with the remodel.

Thanks for bringing that up!

I have a 4-inch CREE over my sink, and the 6 inch ones elsewhere. The electrician was strongly against using the 4-inch for general lighting, and I was tired of arguing. In retrospect, the 4-inch light over my sink is fine, and I think I would have been happy if all the cans were 4 inch.

But what I am not happy with is the performance of the 6 inch CREE. We had one (of nine) replaced already because it flickered, and now another four have failed (are flickering). I would not use CREE again.

This used to be so simple. I just met with my electrician this week. I feel your pain. My KD put together a lighting plan for me. Remember the days when there were just light bulbs? Now, it's so complicated.

The one thing that I have learned from the process is regardless the number of fixtures you select, you will want dimmers and not just a basic switch. The brightness can be blinding. Plus, if you over light the space, you can tone it down. You definitely want dimmers on the LED under cabinet lighting. My head hurts from dealing with this issue.

I went back to the lighting store, this time meeting with the assistant manager, who has helped me many times in the past (and never steered me wrong).

This is her tweak to my plan (which she said was quite good to begin with).

{{gwi:2137257}}

The cans I'll use aren't sealed like the cans you have to use for closets or showers. It's simply a housing and the bulb is separate. I can play with color temperature, spread and wattage of the LED bulb. The inner sleeve of the can we'll likely use is slightly silvery so glare is minimal: that's a plus.

She warned me about LEDs and dimmers (definitely would not do without them, HomeChef59). The bulb can strobe, which would be beyond annoying. She said that she and a few electricians have had some issues but simply by changing out the dimmer, the problem was resolved. And believe it or not but one electrician had the most success going back to the standard Lutron dimmer over the Lutron dimmer touted for use with CFLs and LEDs.

Juno_barks, I'm surprised you're so unhappy with CREE. They're supposed to be the best LEDs on the market right now. That's not just per our electrician but per articles my DH has read. So far, we've had good luck with our CREE bulbs and fixtures. Fingers crossed for us. I hope your issues get resolved.

Unfortunately, I've seen some poor reviews lately for the Cree bulbs at online sites. Not a lot, but enough to make me steer away for now. I chose 3k Feit's for my 6" cans and love the light. I think your plan looks great. I would have done 4" but did not have enough lead time to order and they werent available off the shelf for slope ceilings. If you are doing LED bulbs do LED dimmable switches. They are instant on with my LED bulbs. They've been great and have nice combinations and a clean look. I'd do some research before believing one electricians opinion. I'd hate to have to redo it. His opinion is the opposite of what the experts here have advised and what I've experienced.

Good to know, bbtrix. The cans aren't Cree but we have purchased their light bulbs and been happy with them. I'll get hubby to research the latest reviews about them and check into Feit, too.

Thanks!

That's about the position that I finally used for my no-uppers lights. I got led fakes for gu10 called viribright. In a 4.5 ft counter run, I have two 4.5 watt dimmable ones at about 8 ft high in monopoint fixtures.

Mine are warm white floods - still a little bluer than I'd like, but perfectly fine. They are on a dimmer that is nothing special and works fine. The bulb has zero glare. The two of them are a delight to work under.

Here is a link that might be useful: Viribright on amazon

I forgot to say that positioning the fixture a little more towards the wall than the counter edge means more of the light is in front of you and shadows on the work area are reduced to just about none.

Your revised plan does look a lot better. I'm not sure by the drawing, but next to the Advantuim over a regular oven stack, is that an open counter with no cabinets above? If so, that area will be in shadow when you are standing there. I'd add a light centered above it like the other side with no cabinets above. I also agree that dimmers are mandatory but especially with LEDs.

Congrats on all of your planning, researching and patience. And a Janurary start date! I know you are excited. All of your hard work on the front end will pay off big time!

I can't wait to see your kitchen, lisa! I am struggling with my lighting plan too and would like to piggy back on your research on can light locations. I will also have many spots with no upper cabinets. So, I will likely follow suit like you have designed, and position the can lights over the counter rather than on the edge of the counter for counters with no uppers above. I see you have yours 10 inches in from the edge -- is that what the lighting expert at the shop recommended?

I too am confused why your can lights are more in the walkway for the run that includes your ovens. Given your design has many small print details that are too hard to read, can you clarify why you went with cans away from the counters on this run?

Thanks and best of luck!

Carol

Thanks, bmore! I tried to find your kitchen reveal thread and couldn't. I'd love to see pics of your lights and their placement in your kitchen. TIA!

Thanks, cindallas! The cab next to the oven column has a base and an upper cab that is 15" or 16" above the counter and pulled forward so that its face is even with the base cab face. It will be similar to this set-up, except that the toaster oven cubby will only be 19 1/2" deep (the toaster oven, inc handle, will pretty much fill the space front to back).

[Contemporary Kitchen[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/contemporary-kitchen-ideas-phbr1-bp~t_709~s_2103) by Charlotte Appliances DCI Home Resource

I hadn't planned on adding UCL lighting here since it wouldn't do much beyond light the top of the toaster oven. The toaster oven has a lighted control panel so we won't have a problem reading temp, settings, etc.

I realized that I'm adding 2 additional can lights to the kitchen so yes, definitely on the dimmer switch!

I can't wait to see my kitchen either, Carol! =) The lighting rep recommended the 10" back from the front. I forgot to ask her if that was OC (on center) or to the front edge of the can but since we're talking about 2", I decided not to worry about it and go with the front to back position of my can in the corner above the windows since not repositioning it will save us a bit of $$.

There won't be any work counter in the area next to the ovens, only a shallower than standard counter for the toaster oven. Everything else is floor to ceiling cabs so lighting in front of it is preferred. The can above my fridge and fridge cab was placed way too close to the cab face creating glare on the cab and shadows where I don't want them. Also, it's how our current cans are placed and it's worked well for 20+ yrs.

Good luck with your kitchen planning!

I changed the lighting after the original drove me nuts. I have a small sofit with the exhaust duct inside. I used to have flat fixtures under the sofit.

We pulled those out and went with monopoints mounted on the front of of the sofit and the minimal gooseneck fixtures in the link below. I painted the monopoint to match the wall color. Someday, I might look for more tasty fixtures but these let me adjust angles and positioning.

I hope your remodel goes well - plans look good.

Here is a link that might be useful: Minimal sort of fixture.

Looks great! The only suggestion I'm going to make is to mirror the light by the Advantium on the other side of the island too. The rest of the kitchen looks pretty well covered so I think that large aisle space may feel/look darker. Adding a light there looks like it would make the coverage more consistent.

I used 4 in Ecosmart from HD (made by CREE). LOVE them! And I haven't had any problems with the dimmer or performance.

The lighting is one of my favorite things from the remodel. I use the UCL all the time, and also the dimmers for both UCL and cans. So nice to come home after a stressful day at my overlit, over stimulating workplace and cook with a nice, even, soft lighting. Then DH can cook the next night with everything lit up like a stadium!

Thanks, bmore! Interesting gooseneck lights. They must look great in your kitchen (still one of my faves). And thanks for the compliment! The plans ought to look good; I've only been working on it for 7 years. ;-p

Thanks, williamsem! By mirror the can by the Advantium do you mean adding another can in about the same location in the upper aisle? Hmm, I think that might be over-lighting that area since I'll have 1 additional can in that area already. Plus the UCL on the upper cab to the right of the sink, the 2 halogen lights on the hood and the pendants over the island. It's rare that I turn on every single light that I currently have as it is and since I'm adding 30% more lighting already, I'm not sure I need to increase it even more. I'm curious to know the reason behind your suggestion, though. Maybe I'm missing something.

I'm off to look for your reveal photo to check out your lighting. =)

Erm...uh...well...no final reveal yet. I was going to wait until the backsplash was fixed, but now that I finally got shades for the slider I might just clean it up and finally post.

Yes, I meant between the island and stove in line with the lower light. It just looks like the rest of the room is pretty evenly covered and there is a hole there. Might not be the case in reality though!

Also consider you won't have the hood lights on if you are not cooking, and may not always want/use the UCL. Personally, especially if you are using dimmers, I'd suggest going with layers as complete as possible in coverage of their intended area, then adjust as needed when using layers together.

After the kitchen, I went light crazy. My new great room fan has a light now, the new fixtures reflect off the white ceiling, and I have two brighter LEDs on the hall ceiling. Plus I added two flush mount LED lights in the basement when we ended up gutting it suddenly. I'm absolutely amazed at how much sufficient lighting has transformed my home (I'm sure the new floor and paint helped too, but the light just makes it feel homier now and much more functional).

As long as you have dimmers, layers, and some logic to the plan, I'm pretty convinced you cannot have too much light!

I see your point and would agree if I were relying only on cans for ambient light sources but I also have 2 island pendants, halogen 75 W each (used to be 100 W incandescent) and they put out a lot of light. I consider the hood's lights and UCLs (which I currently rarely use because my cans and island pendants provide sufficient lighting for nearly all purposes) as task lighting for my kitchen.

When we went from incandescent to halogen for cans and pendants at the same wattage, we were nearly blinded by the light =) so I think I can have too much light. We dropped wattage by 25% just to be able to bear being in our kitchen and even that is more light than we used to get from the incandescent bulbs. (My kitchen is already quite well lit since my home is just over 20 yrs old.) It's nice to have dimmers but I'd like the default setting - all the way "on" - to be a comfortable level of brightness.

Just for grins, here is my kitchen's current lay-out and lighting

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I *can not* wait to get my cook top off the island! It will be wonderful to have more than 16" of prep space on each side of it.

Thanks for your feedback!

Looking forward to seeing your reveal thread!

You know the space better, sounds like you've thought through this! My lighting plan was probably the hardest part for me since I knew very little when I started (and I still don't know the technical stuff). Never hurts to consider things though, fewer regrets that way :-). Looks pretty good!

Happy holidays!

I really appreciate your suggestions and thoughts, williamsem. Even if my plans don't change, at least I've thought about it from all sides and that's always, always, always a good thing!

So thanks for giving me ideas to mull over!