I would definitely recommend the lighting for the reasons you list (ambiance and task lighting). Plus, with a small kitchen, light helps brighten it and make it look larger and less "cave like". Here are a couple of pictures of my kitchen prior to being fully completed. The first is on a gloomy day - as you can see the kitchen is lit up, while the room to the right (with the same paint color) isn't. The lighting from the microwave would have provided even more light to the kitchen if I had it on. I feel undercabinet lighting helps brighten the kitchen in a way that ceiling lighting can't.

Hope this helps!

Looks great! What's the spacing from the bottom of your cabinets to your counter top? My cabinets hang quite a bit lower.

Also - what type of UC lighting did you use? I've heard some lights throw off a lot of heat which I want to avoid if possible. I have to do a retrofit and likely have to cut through my cabinets. I'm ok with this as they are very old and I'm getting the painted.

Hi blue ~

I'll check the height for you when I get home - I know California now has a minimum height requirement. My kitchen prior to the remodel didn't have that same height, and it did restrict me some.

I let the contractor pick out the lighting for me - all I know is I got the puck lighting I wanted, and not the tubes. Hopefully, there will be some visible information on them that I can get to you as well.

Have a good day and I'll check in later!

Our cabinets are 18" above the counter. The undercab lighting is usefull at night to give the area a non-glaring light.

Here is a view of the lights from below to give an idea about depth placement and light type

We put in undercabinet lighting with individual switches on the lights themselves. I find it annoying to fumble to find the hi/low/off switch. Therefore, I don't think I use them as much as I might if I had them on a wall switch.

Here's mine:

What I really need is a picture with the undercab lights *off*. Its really quite dark. Of course its more of an issue with the dark cabinets and black counters, and that I have very few windows. If you have everything light, and lots of windows it may not be important to you. But I am extremely happy I got them.

Love all your cabinets - your kitchens are so lovely. Franki- I am wondering if your lighting is florescent? I'm trying to decide between that and the xenon (not sure of spelling). Does anyone have recommendations for one over the other? I read that halogen gets really hot. A friend who has the xenon says those can get expensive and hers seem to burn out easily ---but just want to hear from anyone with experience on why xenon might be a better choice than florescent lighting.

I don't have pix yet but so far I've been happy with mine (installed 5 whole days, no running water or working appliances yet). I listened to people on this forum, doublechecked with the electrician who'd be doing the actual install, and bought puck lights, chrome finish, from Pegasus Lighting. The lights get hot but apparently are cooler than halogen.

We have flourescent under cab lighting. It cast a nice light, comes on without any delays, no buzzing sound and each bulb has a switch so I can turn off the light in certain areas if I want. The only negative is that these bulbs are not dimmable(sp?), the ones that do are quite $$$ (according to the electrician)

Did anyone have to do a retrofit for their UC lighting or did they had this wired from the beginning? As mine is a retrofit, I'm taking ease of installation into account.

Hi blue ~

I'm finally back - my measurement comes to a whopping 20" between the cabinet bottom and countertop. Now wonder it's so easy to fit my blender under there now! Not sure what the standard is, but most of these posted pictures show lots of space as well.

I can't tell what type of puck lighting I have - it was an add on that the contractor was supposed to bill me for but didn't, which I feel was totally fair since I had some pretty annoying things happen under his watch. Anyway, now I'm afraid to ask since he may remember he didn't charge me (although I'm sure his large bill covered it somehow!) No retrofitting required on mine as my kitchen was gutted.

Thanks for checking! I measured mine and it's about 16 inches between the cabinet and counter top. More space than I expected. I think it's going to be worth it for me.

I'm going to head to some stores to check out their lighting displays and talk to my contractor on what would work the best in my situation. Thanks again.

Here is a link that might be useful: Kitchen Photo

My lighting is Xenon - Seagull Linear. Its just a strip of wire, into which tiny bulb holders are pressed. This was not a retrofit - the wiring was pulled through the wall before the cabinets went up. There is literally no fixture at all - just a black wire coming out of a hole in the wall that is hidden by the cabinets.

Paul_ma how do you like the Xenon Linear? I just saw a home display using it and was surprised how brightly and evenly it lights the under cabinet area with minimal heat. I believe the system I saw was also a Seagull and used 10Watt bulbs. Did you put your lights all on a single dimmer switch? The system I saw used a transformer built into a cabinet but the switch was able to control multiple lighting tracks that spanned several different cabinet walls.

I have found that the larger strip fixtures that use Xenon lights still generate alot of heat similar to Halogen, but my impression was that heat was much less of an issue with the smaller bulbs used in linear lighting systems. Do you find the light output to be adequate? Another company I am reading up on that uses linear Xenon track lighting is called Kichler. They have both 5W and 10W bulbs available.