Lighting layout...really need feedback on this plan!

10 years ago

Can anyone help me with my lighting plan? The electrician came today and I tried to mock up on here the rough lighting layout we came up with. He's coming back tomorrow to wire it, yikes! I'm nervous now, I have no idea if this amount of recessed lighting is adequate. They had that "its totally up to you how many recessed lights you want" attitude, not very helpful, but at least not pushy, just...blah.

The small red & yellow circles are 4" recessed lights...I'm supposed to tell them what kind of lighting I want in those cans, but they balked when I mentioned LED, apparently that was not factored into original estimate and they are $50 ea for bulbs. Not sure that's something I want to upgrade to? Does anyone do incandescent lights anymore? They mentioned fluorescent and halogen too...don't think I want those, but how do I know? Any recs for what type of lighting in these cans that wont blow the budget?

The larger yellow circles are wiring for pendants/chandeliers. I know I want wiring for a chandelier over the dining table.

I'm not sure about island vs. peninsula lighting. I'm thinking a single lantern type pendant over my island. My inspiration photos have this. The island is small (24x54) so any more than 1 would be too cramped I think.
But, is that enough lighting? Do I need more cans?/ Would you put pendants over the peninsula or a pendant over the sink? I'll have a 70" window bumpout there, thought a little pendant might look nice...?

But I don't want to over do anything. I like the idea of having one or 2 really nice light fixtures in this fairly open concept.

Please advise!
There will be wiring for sconces flanking fireplace, not sure if I'm going to use them or not.

Oh, and then theres UCL they want me to pick. soon.

I admittedly haven't searched the forum to death on this yet. Everytime I do a search & start reading, this topic blows my mind. I was going to just let the electrician decide but he wasn't as helpful or knowledgeable as I had hoped for. Just hoping someone would be kind enough to give me some specifics, or point me to the best place to quickly educate myself on this...thanks!

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Comments (4)

calumin
10 years ago
You should read through this thread from the Lighting forum:

LED recessed cans guide for kitchen

The short version of the thread is that LED is a great option for kitchens now, and that Cree CR4 (4") and CR6 (6") are the best LED recessed lights for the price. Home Depot sells a version (EcoSmart) for ~$35-40, with the can will be about ~$50 total.

To get a very rough ballpark estimate of how much light (lumens) you need, take the square footage and multiply by 35. You could go higher but that could serve as a baseline for all lighting. I ended up 50% over that baseline amount but am happy I did that, and have dimmers if necessary (I also don't have all the lights on at once).

The issue you will have with LED recessed lights is the cans. If your electrician is wiring them tomorrow, then you might not be able to get cans at the store -- I had to buy mine online. Cans and recessed lamps are not always interchangeable -- you have to test them first. The thread lists some cans that are compatible with Cree CR4/6. You could just go to Home Depot and get a different LED light like Juno -- but I found the Cree light to be much brighter. I bought 4" recessed lights and it was great -- however if there was less light output (e.g. from another brand) I would have rather gone to 6" to keep the lumen output high.

On the UCLs, one word of advice is to buy them early. I bought TechLighting UniLume which took three weeks to arrive. This thread may help:

led ucl continuation
Cindy103d
10 years ago
I love recessed lights in the kitchen, but am less excited about them in the dining and living rooms. Maybe because it takes so many of them to light the rooms. Your kitchen looks like it may be a little short on the number needed, but follow Calumin's advice to read the guide.

We started out with compact flourescent bulbs, but they are expensive, burn out much faster than good old incadescent and pose an environmental disposal problem. So, we reverted back to incadescent until they are officially outlawed. I LOVE the LEDs, but wow - are they ever expensive.
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My kitchen layout is similiar to your proposed, except for fridge palcement. I have a door to garage and fridge where you show your pantry wall (black board is actually door to garage). This is across from the prep sink / short side of island: From the range wall to the edge of my island is about 9 feet (2ft. range wall cabs + 42" aisle + 40" deep island). Where you show your banquette, I have a fireplace and tv. To the left of the tv is a hall connecting to my living rm. Behind the tv is a powder room. This is a view when standing at the range and looking at fireplace. You can see how the ceiling is lower where my original house ends. You can see I have a love seat facing the fireplace. Its not big enough to call a family room, but its cozy and works very well for us as we do not have another family room. To the right of the fireplace, I have sliding doors to a porch. By the sliding doors, you can just see the back end of my eating area. I haven't installed the banquette yet, but even without the banquette its working fabulously! The seating area is bumped out a tiny bit for a 3 bay window. Its only about a 18" deeper than the rest of room. To give you a better perspective, I'll add this photo of the bay window area, before it was finished. I hope this helps you. It was very difficult to get the spacing right and have everything the way we wanted it. My architect was not up to the job, he didn't design it correctly in the beginning and even after several revisions, it just wasn't right. Knowing this was going to the most expensive thing I ever do, I just could not move forward until the layout was right for us. GW helped me alot, but ultimately, I consulted with an interior designer who helped me allocate the space and make it work. I can't express how truly wonderful the reality of this kitchen is and how it has changed our house and family. We spend all our time there. Its the best thing we ever did. Good luck. Its an expensive project, so make sure you have the design fine tuned before you do anything else.
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purrus - your floor plan is similar to ours. Overall, I like it - how could I not since it is similar(although we do not have the peninsula and have wall ovens instead of a range. Are you putting in new windows - if you can, bump it out a bit to give you some space behind the sink - I wish I had waited on our garden window and would have put it down to the counter and just had it as a bay instead of garden. I included some pictures - probably too many but might give you some ideas. I didn't want anything that would avalanche in the upper cabinets - so towels, dishrags, pot holders, food storage containers etc are in drawers. My flours (I have about 10-12 different varieties) are in glass and tupperware in the uppers. The shelves are not warped - it was the camera setting. I am also swapping out some of the MadeSmart containers for ones with taller sides. I think the pull outs to the right and left of the range are throwing off the symmetry. You also mentioned needing a place to store dishtowels etc. I am sure I missed some of the pieces of the thread but I will add a few thoughts. I store my big pots in my Super Susan corner cab - I think you have one of those. I store my lighter weight cookie sheets etc above my oven and fridge - the heavier weight items are not something I want to crawl up on a ladder. My cutting boards are in a narrow cabinet - not a pull out - I almost switched to drawers for this but decided against it. Oils and spices so close to the oven... not sure that is a good idea but others have done it. Suggestions for improving the plan. I wish I had put drawers under the sink - I still hope to swap them when I save a few dollars..so if you can do it, go for it! I would ditch the cabinet to the right of the range and start your bank of drawers next to the range. Then add a small bank next to those drawers - My smaller drawers hold my pot holders, dish towels etc or you could put the cabinet next to the DW for cutting boards and cookie trays, etc The cabinets to the left are a total of 48 inches? I would make 2 sets of 24 inch drawers out of them to align with the top cabinets or whatever configuration you use. For spices - I went with the spice stack - others use a drawer. I wanted to leave them in their original containers whenever possible - I am tired of pouring into containers. Here are some things we did First an overview picture - we could not get the cabinets to be all the same size but I think it can be OK. What bothers me on yours is the difference between the top and bottom alignments. Cutting board storage near knives etc - this is the one that I thought of switching to a drawer but it would have been too thin. This is a small bank of drawers near the DW and yes, it really stays that organized. The drawer above has pot holders and trivets in it - but I added a divider and have my egg slicer, avocado and apple corer(sp) standing up along the side. This one shows all 3 Spice Stack - you can get this one and there is a smaller model as well. SuperSusan holds a lot (and lots more in it now!) - Not sure if tall enough for your tallest stock pot - but I could measure mine. On your other side - I saw an angle cabinet - we put some of the food oils and taller bottles in this location - you could also use your pantry next to the fridge. (we have some tall ones in our pantry as well) Here is our above oven storage - slots and a place for pots - the shelves are adjustable on the right - but you could do something similar above the fridge. Good luck - you are almost there!
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buildinva
10 years ago
We just installed 50 (yikes!) EcoSmart Cree LED cans in our build. Do not regret it a bit. They are contemporary and beautiful and the light is great. I used a 10% off Lowes coupon @ HD to help with cost. I used the soft white because that's what I prefer. Beautiful color.

It's true, however, that cans do not spread the light the way ceiling lights do. I would probably use a flush mount ceiling light and lamps in your family room and skip or reduce the number of cans there. You also want to think about "eyeball" cans to spotlight any art you plan to feature. And depending on the chandelier you are using over the table, you may not need cans in those corners.

Finally, I'll give you the advice my contractor gave me when I was so nervous about creating the lighting plan and making mistakes: everything is changeable. If you install something and hate it, you can have it taken out. If you don't end up with enough light, you can have more added. Nothing *truly* bad will happen if you change your mind later!

HTH!
tracie.erin
10 years ago
We've renovated and put a ton of lights in. The thing with recessed lights is that they need to be close enough to a vertical surface so the light is washed down that surface. If not, the light just hits the floor. It's the difference between actually lighting up the room or not.

We found that 18" away from the wall (or cabinets, fireplace) etc. was perfect so the light could wash down the wall and bounce back into the room.

When we started the project, we did 21" or 24" from the wall, which is way too far away. The dining room, kitchen, and office are still too dark :/ at least we have pendants, chandeliers, and lighted ceiling fans in those rooms too.

Lighting layout...really need feedback on this plan!

Comments (4)

calumin

Cindy103d

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