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katie_sanderson56

Seeking lighting advice

6 years ago

I have just installed quartz countertops around the perimeter of my kitchen with quartzite on the island. At night the colors are exactly what I wanted (grayish). During the day they look very pink. It must be sunlight bouncing off our deck outside onto the ceiling onto the counters? The deck is brown with maybe a tiny hint of red. Or the sun is bouncing off our wood floors onto the ceiling onto the counters? The floors are red oak that have been refinished to their natural color.

I wonder if there is a fix that doesn’t require changing the deck stain or bleaching our newly refinished floors. Maybe a film or tint on the windows to absorb (or reflect?) red light. A ceiling paint to help absorb red light?

The counters looks pink during the day with lights on or off, so I am less optimistic that I can fix it with bulb color. But I’m open to trying that too. There’s 2700k BR30 can lights right now. I’ve just ordered 3000k as a trial. And we haven’t installed under cabinet lighting yet.

Comments (9)

  • 6 years ago

    The walls will be mostly be the white slab cabinets & windows. In the adjacent room I have useful gray at 50%. That will fill in gaps wherever there isn’t cabinets or backsplash. I haven’t picked a backsplash yet. I am nervous after this debacle 😆

  • 6 years ago

    wait for the new bulbs, also order a couple of 4k as well.

  • 6 years ago

    I think you'll find it goes away with the right temperature bulbs in your pendant lights (it looks like you're wired for pendants). I'd say 4000K -- but don't do the whole kitchen at that temperature, unless you put them on dimmers.


    Additionally, this is probably a seasonal effect of the green leaves outside your window -- red and green are opposites on the colour spectrum and so are the most highly contrasted. You'll notice the small bit of red against the green when the leaves are bright, whereas at night that small bit of red doesn't stand out as much.

  • 6 years ago

    Oh and the island is walnut. I don’t see too much red in it.

  • 6 years ago

    After the stove showed up it looks pink too! I did a little test & covered all of the floors & blocked off the other half of the room with a white sheet. That fixed the problem. So it’s these red oak floors.now what are my options? Bleach them? Stain them?

  • 6 years ago

    I hate the thought that you might have to redo those beautiful floors, but if you do, here's a picture of my red oak floors with walnut and white cabinets. They don't look pink at all so if you have to refinish, the pink can go away. This is a photo in natural light in February (no leaves on trees to create any color impacts per advice below). Start with changing the light bulbs.


  • 6 years ago

    That looks beautiful! How did you get the red out of those floors? I have replaced all the can lights with 3000k, but I’m still waiting on under cabinet lighting & pendants.

  • 6 years ago

    I worked with an interior designer (worth every penny!) who selected the color and then she worked with the floor refinisher to get the correct color. It took several sample tries but they got it. I wish I could give you the recipe but it was truly a process of getting it right by adding and removing various stains, trying them on samples and then correcting as necessary. I"m sure one of the color experts on here can tell you what color to add to a red to make it less red.

    The floors were of course, sanded down to the bare wood as you did. The other impressive thing about this effort (i take no credit, all credit goes to the pros) was that half of the floor was red oak from 50 years ago and half is new and you can't tell the difference between the two.