Hello I agree that the soffit should come down, just keep in mind that there will be a bit of drywall repair to consider. The unit probably has 4-40W fl tubes in there, so there will be a noticable loss of overall light as compared to anything else that will go in its place, but the updated look will be worth it and you will still have the lighting that is required for the area. Two relatively inexpensive things that you could do that will have a large and noticable impact is replace all of the bulbs in the recessed with halogen PAR30 (typicaly used) and replace the black trim kits with white ones, this is going to make a huuuge difference, guranteed. You have to replace them with the same manuf that made the fixture you have in the ceiling. Pull down the old trim and find the sticker in the can housing that should state the brand (Halo, Juno?) Inas far as the replacement fixture over the island, recessed of course is a natural option, but as i stated before, give a look at pendants, there are many that are very affordable and there is bound to be a style that you take a liking to. If you stay recessed a pair of 5 or 6" cans over this island will suffice. Uncercab lighting is another option that will make the kitchen look like a million bucks, they light up the backsplash and countertop and reflect the light, making the area look much larger and inviting, if someone uses granite the light actually penetrates the stones surface and makes it look 3 dimesional, very interesting effect. In terms of the light itself, you want to try to stay with a brand that is known for their quality, inexpensive undercab lighting systems will fail much quicker, and when i say fail I mean that the transformers have a poor life span and the bulb sockets deteriorate because of the high concentration of heat which is inherint to xenon or halogen light bulbs. Which one do I prefer?, Zenon systems burn a little cooler but they are more expemsive to replace (bulbs) and sometimes they are harder to find than the halogen bulbs. The brand of fixtures that you are refering to in your post is a good brand and should do the job well. Just stay clear of the small round hockey puck sized fixtures that you find in the mass merchants, these are just plain junk and will stop functioning in a short period of time. Go ahead and price a few systems out there, but keep in mind that you get what you pay for. I will help peope justify what they spend in the kitchen by reminding them that it is the kitchen that everyone in the household spends the most time in on a daily basis and not that $3000 couch that they wont let the kids sit on, am I right?. I hope this has helped you in your decision making processes and good luck on the project. ken

We have a corner sink on our peninsula. Our peninsula has 2 pendants; the corner sink has one recessed light above it. The pendants are controlled by one switch, the recessed light another. The light over the sink is independent of all other lights, recessed or not. Note that the sink light is also quite close to the crown molding. Personally, I think it looks fine. The reasoning behind this setup (yes, it was deliberate), is that when I'm at the sink I only need to have the light above it on, not the pendants, which aren't over it, nor the other recessed lights, which would be behind me and cast a shadow over the sink. I don't know how far apart the lights are (I'm not at home right now to measure), but I do know that the lights work the way they were designed to. I'm happy with them.

For the uplight, you could go a few routes, especially with respect to dimming functionality. And some fixtures don't support dimming, so you need to figure that out. To that end, I suggest you think through the use cases. For example, the use case that I think I'd appreciate most is late evening, after you've retired to another room of the house, at which time a mellow indirect glow from the skylight cutout would be particularly pleasant. You might also want the more light from this source on occasion, in which case you'd want brighter lights on a dimmer. That being said, here's some options. I'm thinking two, centered on the skylights, mounted near the bottom rim of the cutout (just above the beam probably). Regarding the pendant, I know that selecting pendants is hard enough without more to think about, but one downside of a single pendant vs multiple pendants is thhat single sources create worse shadows. And the clear glass pendants above exacerbate this harsh shadow problem by being point sources, whereas the Fillsta, for example, mitigates this problem because it's effectively a uniform 31" sphere of light. This large diffuser also makes it possible to use a brighter source. For example, you could put a 300W equivalent CFL in the Fillsta, but such a bright light would be unacceptably harsh in a point source like the clear glass pendants above.

I have a 10 ft island that is placed off center and perpendicular to the pitch ceiling of my kitchen. There is a beam running the length of the ceiling at the apex. To hang 3 pendants centered over the island, one of the pendants has to be hung from the other side of the beam. Is this ok? I haven't been able to find any pictures online to help. Thanks!