First of all - your home is absolutely gorgeous. The kitchen and living area is a beautiful space. Windows, cabinetry, casings, fireplace - all perfection! In my humble opinion, the red accents are throwing me off. If the stools were tan or off white, I think that would lighten up the space. That would tie into the counter tops and rug and trim in the living room.

Beautiful home! We are alike in having dark floors and dark (hickory) cabinets; I also have dark (SW urbane bronze) trim). Having LED downlights compared to the traditional canned/recessed lights really helps brighten the whole space up.

https://www.kichler.com/kichler/products/indoor-lighting/downlights-recessed/led-downlights/horizon-3000k-led-downlight-43855led30t-wht/

If those are Edison bulbs in your pendants, they will continue to cast a yellow light, and not much of it. I would look to change those out too.

Floor & table lamps. If needed get light drapes or light filtering shades, sheers.

I went half bright (daylight) and half warm in a room (fan was warm and spotlights against a wall were bright) and was called out on it by a friend right away. I kept it anyway :)

We recently switched our canned lights to inserted wafer-like led - some of these can be changed in temperature and that flexibility is nice. We just screwed them in and connected a plug - it wasn’t hard

Do you think the 3000k warm white would be bright enough? I’m not sure what wattage we have in the canned lights that are there now. We could just replace the existing bulbs couldn’t we? We wouldn’t have to install new canned light fixtures would we?

Re: the red bar stools, we used to have a red accent chair in the living room, and I thought they tied in. I’m going with beige with blue accents in the new furniture. I hope to pull a little red in the living room without making it look patriotic themed.

4000k bulbs don't brighten a room, they shift the colour of the light away from yellow and towards blue, giving a light quality that is supposedly similar to daylight. Me, I find 4000k too cold a light for my tastes. 3000k is as far as I go, and I accept that it means a slightly yellow light. To actually lighten a room, you need more light-- either more bulbs or more lumens (like replacing a 60W bulb with a 100W bulb back when we used incandescents).

Some fixtures will take LED bulbs. Others won't, particularly fluorescent or halogen fixtures. Choose the temperature that makes you comfortable (2700k is close to soft white) and the lumen rating (more is brighter) that gives the amount of light you need.

I find if you are used to incandescent lightingyou will find LED 4000K bright at first but believe me you will learn to love the fact that colors look the same at night as during the day and the light is just plain brighter and better not to mention cheaper to run Halogen bulbs can all be replaced with LEDs and so can some flourescents .