When you say you are keeping the tray ceiling--are you keeping the entire dropped ceiling at that height? If so, how high is the ceiling over that peninsula and bar? It looks questionable whether there is enough height for pendants, especially larger pendants.

You don't have room for pendants. Stay with recessed.

Good point! To clarify setting:

Ceiling is 8 feet for tray and 7.5 feet for low area. (Why I am keeping tray!). Work surface is 36” with about 5” height increase for bar (always used with stools…)

We are short so the heights are comfortable for us and we intend to stay here for 20 more years. The rest of the room and house is vaulted up to 20+ feet.

Thanks. So the ceiling is 90 inches heigh and the bar top is 41 inches high. Pendants should hang at least 30" above the bar. That leaves you 19 inches of total pendant height--canopy, cord, and fixture combined. Your pendants need to be very short to work at all. Even then, it seems like they are likely to look stubby, and make the space feel crowded. Do the balloon mock-up test first to see what it feels like. And consider staying with recessed lights, or perhaps attractive semi-flush fixtures.

Thanks for the feedback. I knew they needed to be short. Was going to do mock-up… just bored with more recessed but trying to avoid clutter - especially concerned of conflict with my blue lights on far side.

Any ideas on semi flush? Trying to stay clear of boob lights…

Oh yeah, boob lights are the worst. And technically, flush mounts, not semi flush. What style are you going for with the kitchen update?

Transitional I guess. Keeping my cabinets but updating to fresh paint/floor/ceiling. Thinking of going dark in tray ceiling as my contrast point with a downy white ceiling overall. Eventually will lighten up the silestone counter. But it’s a very good WORK kitchen and want to keep that focus. Floor is going pale oak LVP

NO just say no to trying to add more visuals to this space. I'm not understanding keeping the tray, if you think it helps the lighting, .5 feet does not. Im really really stressing not to put pendants here. I would also remove all the sticks around that ceiling, let it blend away a bit more.

Honestly, I am unclear why you are doing anything to the space the lights you have are great, give good light, going smaller isn't going to do much here. just a thought.

thanks!