I didn't bring home a 4" Sylvania, but I can provide a comparison to the RT6. I, too, prefer the 3000k color over the Ecosmart/CREE 2700k color. Both dim well down to very low levels, using cheap incandescent dimmers. The RT6 has a short turn-on delay, in the range of 1/2 second. No deal breaker, but not as instant as the CREE. I ended up going with the cheaper 6" Ecosmart (I do think 4" looks better). Partly for the cost, and partly for the instant on, and partly because I can get brighter 6" LEDs in the areas I need (island, sink), and use the cheaper 575 lumen ones elsewhere. Since I have to meet California Title 24 for the kitchen, part of the higher cost was that Sylvania charges $8 for an adapter (cost of manufacture ~ 12 cents) to go from their connector to a GU24 socket. Either one is a good choice, in my opinion.

Terry, you remind me of myself when I was first married. My mother did not want anyone in her kitchen except to clean up or to make an occasional batch of cookies, so I didn't know much. Poor DH ate so many flops! Looking back, I would give you several pieces of advice. The first is that you invest in some tools. A portable mixer, a food processor, a nice marble rolling pin, some silicone mats, some nice heavy cookware (I use cast iron skillets and a dutch oven. For my saucepans, I use nice heavy ones that I bought at a flea market. For bakeware, I like those insulated pans.), measuring cups and spoons, and a good set of knives. The mixer can be an inexpensive one. It needs to be lightweight enough that you can bring it to the stove and use it to mash potatoes and make 7-minute frosting, if you want to someday. I had a big MixMaster for years, but I found it too cumbersome and heavy. The food processor can be an inexpensive one, too, but get one that has a big bowl if you can. I use a Cuisinart. It was killer expensive and if I had it to do over again I would've bought something else, due to the fact that once in awhile the blade gets jammed down onto the bowl and it has to be shipped to get it repaired, and they take their sweet time. I have Cutco knives, simply because I was suckered in when I was 18 and not very consumer-savvy (something ELSE I had to learn on my own!). They have served me well for 40 years, but I've broken a couple things and the manufacturer will not make good on the "Lifetime Guarantee" because I lost the certificate somewhere along life's way. There are lots of brands of knives that are still good that don't cost as much. They should feel balanced in your hand when you grip the handle in a cutting position. I use my food processor a lot. I make my own chopped and shredded vegetables, "Shake'n'Bake, graham cracker crumbs,and lots of other things. When a recipe calls for the sugar, eggs and fat to be creamed together, I just drop them all in and turn on the motor. So also when the flour and fat needs to be "mixed till the mixture resembles corn meal". I find I hardly ever use my blender unless I'm making smoothies, and I bet I could make them in the food processor, too. I like wire whisks for when I make gravy, puddings, pie fillings. Christmas is coming up, maybe you can put in a request to Santa. I almost forgot, I use my crockpot a lot, too, and it's one I bought at a thrift shop. I have a microwave I bought at WMT on sale, but mostly I use it for heating up things, melting butter and thawing frozen things, and baking potatoes. I think I could probably do without it easier than some of the other tools I have listed here. The second piece of advice is that you learn certain skills, such as how to cut up a chicken and how to roll out a pie crust. Yes, you can buy cut up chicken and rolled-out pie crust. If you want to cook for your family in order to cut your grocery bills, you'll notice these things are more expensive. The third piece of advice is that you start with casseroles. There are lots of variations, each calling for a pasta, rice or potato ingredient, a meat ingredient, one or more vegetable ingredients, and usually something that binds them together, like tomato sauce or canned soup. Men and kids usually love a good casserole. If you go to Allrecipes.com and do a search on "casseroles", it will return any number of dishes. These are all rated and critiqued, and these are worth reading. No, I'm not connected to Allrecipes in any way, and there are other sites where you can do the same thing, it's just that it's my "Go to" site usually. They even have a section of "How-To Videos". Here's something I make and use a lot. I think I got it off Allrecipes.com. You can use it on chicken, fish, pork cutlets. Pop these in the oven, make a nice salad and bake some potatoes in the microwave: Shake n Bake an 18 oz box of cornflakes yields about 5 cups of fine crumbs. I mix this recipe up and keep it in a quart canning jar in the refrigerator. When I'm ready to use it, I put only about 1/4 cup on a plate and dredge the meat in it. You can always add a little more to the plate if you need to, but this way you don't waste, because you need to throw out whatever comes in contact with raw meat that doesn't get baked. 3-1/2 cups corn flake crumbs 1/4 C all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons salt 2 teaspoons paprika 2 teaspoons sugar 2 teaspoons garlic powder 2 teaspoons onion powder Combine all ingredients in a small bowl and stir to combine. Prepare chicken following the same technique as described on the box of the original mix using 2 1/2 lb. of bone-in chicken (6 to 8 pieces, with or without skin) or 2 lb. boneless skinless chicken breast halves Preheat your oven to 400º, then moisten the chicken with water. Use a large plastic bag for the coating and use the same steps as described on the original package: "Shake moistened chicken, 1 to 2 pieces at a time, in shaker bag with coating mixture. Discard any remaining mixture and bag. Bake at 400º in ungreased or foil-lined 15x10x1-inch baking pan until cooked through --BONE-IN: 45 minutes/BONELESS: 20 minutes" Sorry this is so long! --Ilene

Well congratulations on your new home! And welcome to the money pit, er, I mean, home ownership club! I didn't see where you indicated what part of the country you live in. I live in Florida so my priorities might not match yours if you live in a cold part of the country. Generally speaking, my advice is to spend the "hard money" first no matter where you live. The "hard money" is what you spend to protect your investment that doesn't necessarily have any impact on aesthetics. Address structural and infrastructure issues first how is the roof, the foundation, the plumbing, the electricity, heating and cooling systems, windows, doors, floors and walls? It makes no sense to take down a nasty popcorn ceiling and make it beautiful only to have a roof leak ruin it and have to do it again. Likewise I wouldn't get hardwood floors refinished until I knew that my floor joists were sound. So spend the money that seems to go toward invisible things first  this is a major investment in your peace of mind and will help you to avoid spending any money twice. If you didn't have a home inspection before you bought your house, do it now. We bought our house "as-is" from an estate knowing that the seller wasn't going to do any repairs, but we paid for a home inspection to help us prioritize the work that needed to be done and spot things that we might not notice. A good home inspection is worth the money. In the last year, I put on a new metal roof (energy savings and hurricane protection), and all new impact resistant doors and windows (again with the energy savings and hurricane preparedness). The inside is a mess (exposed concrete slab, kitchen remodel in progress, ceiling patches from previous water intrusion). All of my new windows went in with virtually NO damage inside. I did have to touch up the paint job to the outside that was done in March. The new doors were quite another story. But, hey, now that you are a homeowner, you are quickly going to become intimately acquainted with drywall spackle and a putty knife and paint and brush. You can perform minor magic with paint and spackle. That's easy and fairly cheap. Your kid decides to see if a cutting board will fly like a frisbee? Spackle and paint. Fido decides to chew the corner off the wall because you left him at home alone while you went to work? Spackle and paint will fix that, too. Make sure you get enough paint to have some left over when you are done! It comes in handy. When it comes to doing work that is cosmetic, I'd advise you to start at the top and work your way down. If you can get ceiling work  texture and paint  done before moving in, your life will be simpler. Except maybe for carpeting. I have asthma and allergies. Why we didn't pull out the carpeting when we first moved in is beyond me. We've been living with the naked concrete slab for almost a year. Yes, it is ugly. Yes, it spawns dirt moments after it is swept. But I haven't had a asthma attack in a LONG time. Your mileage may vary. You can save a lot of money by being flexible and shopping online. If you "get married" to one specific thing, then you lose options to save money. For example, I knew I wanted a single-lever faucet with a non-polished, white metal finish. I looked at the prices for good brands in person and then I looked to see what I could find online. I found a brushed chrome Price-Pfister single-lever bathroom faucet on eBay for $25; the seller was one I've seen favorably mentioned here. I wouldn't spend over $100 for that faucet, but for $25, I'll pay $10 for shipping, and maybe have to bid on more than one auction to get the minimum bid price. I ended up getting two of them at the minimum bid price in about 24 hours. I didn't get to combine the shipping cost, but I still saved a bundle. Check your local Habitat for Humanity. Mine has a resale store where you can buy building materials for a fraction of retail. I haven't bee there yet  it's probably like thrift store shopping  you never know what you'll find. I was at Blowes today and found fancy white vitreous china bathroom sinks marked down to $19.50 (discontinued item). I don't need a fancy one, but I want white. I can live with the fancy one! My home is not architecturally distinctive in any way, but there is an architectural salvage place not far from here that is chock full of goodies, from door knobs and chandeliers to kitchen cabinets and doors. You can also pick up some good deals by watching Craig's List for your area. Examine everything carefully and use common sense  don't go to a stranger's home to buy something by yourself. Some people have said some very harsh, judgmental things to you. I hope that you will ignore them. I haven't heard you say that your objective in life is to sit in front of the tv and I don't think that it's unreasonable to want ONE orderly space to retreat to. It's not realistic to expect that you will feel like spending EVERY waking moment at work or working on your house. You will need to take breaks and PLAN on down time if you are going to live in your house while you work on it. Otherwise life becomes pretty miserable pretty quickly. You can do this if you want it. Lets face it, you have to live somewhere. You will need to make a priority list that fits YOUR needs. That list can and will change when things happen. Since I moved into this house five years ago, the AC died and had to be replaced ($5K), the power supply to the house died and had to be replaced ($1.5K), my 16 year old dog, 82 year old father in law and 40 year old niece died and can never be replaced at any cost. So I probably spent some time in front of the tv when I "should have" been painting a wall. Don't apologize for wanting some comfort in your life. Best of luck to you. B

Ha, nope, 6 years later we are still using a series of stainless restaurant kitchen counters and trying to figure out what we really want in there -- first we had to focus on the house systems like roof, gutters, windows and heating, and then covid layoffs affected us financially, but we're now re-grouping. In the meantime the priority has turned into the main bath of the house, since it was a terrible 80's remodel that is almost literally falling apart and will require a down-to-studs redo. This main bathroom is situated directly above the butler's pantry, so we may be forced to open up the ceiling in any case, forcing our hand on the kitchen a bit. With 5 different doors it will be quite the design challenge. Will keep you posted! :)