When I saw your subject line, the first thought that came to my head was that my recessed cans do a much, much better job of providing even lighting than any other fixture I've ever had. So, I was curious when I read your post indicating that you thought flush mounts would do better. Also, ours are not hot at all, and I'm in Florida, so I'd notice if they contributed to the heat.

We are doing both -- I have can lights around the perimeter, and semi-flush in the center, plus a breakfast table chandelier.

I have can lights right now, and I do not find them hot. They have compact fluorescents in them now, and they run cooler but take longer to "warm up" to full light intensity. However, even with the standard incandescents, I did not notice a heat problem.

As far as light reflection and shadows goes, it really depends on the liner you specify on the can lights. "Haze" or metallic liners are more reflective and have the best light dispersal.

I find that recessed lighting (that is spaced properly) lights very evenly. In the rooms where I have recessed lighting, there are no problems with shadows or dark corners. I have not noticed a problem with them throwing off heat and one room that has them is a small bathroom. Sometimes too many flush mount fixtures in a room can look too busy IMHO. Why not have a mix, like Janet suggested? The recessed lights will provide bright, even lighting that is necessary for a kitchen and a well-placed flush mount or semi-flush fixture or fixtures will add to the decor.

I hate cans and love a well lit kitchen. I have about 20 flushmounts in my kitchen and love them (kitchen is a galley with a beam so lighting is on either side of beam). The are spaced about 2-3 feet apart.

Our kitchen gets hardly any natural light (interior kitchen) and the flushmounts I used are smallish and white and fit nicely with the decor, despite being the same style light that was over my parents' sink in our house when I was a kid.

I have no shadows, just a really well lit kitchen. LOVE flushmounts!

Don't have my finished kitchen post up yet but will link some photos below.

Here is a link that might be useful:

I'm with sabjimata. I find them VERY directional and shadow filled. Plus I wear "coke bottoms" for glasses - even tho they're made with ultra thin plastic. I find that straight down light refracts around in the lens and all I get is glare.

I took home a pair of flushmount two bulb fixtures that provide general lighting with another pair of two bulb lanterns over the clean up sink. I will have task lighting over the prep area, ran the wire but just have some temp fixtures up for inspection while I figure it out.

I think it is a matter of taste, but IMHO I feel cans, properly placed, with the proper trims,and with the proper bulbs give the best task lighting for a kitchen. The look is clean and unobtrusive, and doesn't make the ceiling a focal point.

Our kitchen is also about 11' x 11' and we have 5 Juno 5" cans with Alzak wheat haze trims, 75w PAR Haolgen bulbs, all on a dimmer. They are spaced about 3 feet apart, centered over the counter edge. (Over the stove the hood has its own halogens, so we didn't need a can there.)

On full bright they give excellent lighting, no shadows or dark spots, and no glare. The halogens really make the granite sparkle. When dimmed, they give a nice glow to the kitchen. What little heat they give off is not noticeable, and we also live in Florida. When off, the wheat haze trims blend into the ceiling, and one doesn't even notice them.

Agree with everything said by svwillow 1. We went from a flush mount fixture to the same recessed cans as svwillow 1-the 5" Juno with the alzak wheat haze but used 50 watt par halogen bulbs. Our kitchen is bigger, so we have 9 of them along with a light over the sink. The way they were positioned, there are no shadows/glares/spots and the light flows evenly over the space. The dimmer is set at 75% and that is still enough good lighting. Never noticed any extreme heat. I would never go back to flush mount but that is my personal preference.

I really struggled with this, too. I think it's best to consult a lighting specialist, but even then we weren't happy with the results, probably because we didn't know what to ask. I can only speak to the cans, but I think the type of bulb and trim you use has a big impact on the type of light you get. Our lighting specialist recommended short neck halogen PAR bulbs - the kind that have the reflector covers that look like outdoor bulbs - with black trims. We knew the black trims weren't for us, so we looked into the alzak trims, both clear and wheat haze. In the end, since we couldn't decide, we told the electrician to put in the basic white trims with the halogen PAR bulbs.

We HATED it. The light was more spot-light than ambient (although not all that spot-light). We could clearly see the parabola shape of the light on the upper cabinets and walls. The shadows were bad, especially the handles on the upper cabinets, and the lights were very harsh when looking at the ceiling (although maybe the alzak trims would have fixed that). So then I started googling. Turns out, we wanted more ambient light, which is sounds to me like what you want, too. But our cans were in, and I wasn't about to consider changing those to surface mount. We ended up going with LEDs, as suggested by Nancy_in_Mich, and we LOVE them. After lots of internet research, we got the Cree LR6 2700k cans for $80 each at polar-ray.com and put them on a dimmer. Polar-ray is local to me so I did not order them over the internet, but they were great - very helpful and knowledgeable, and I saw good reviews of Polar-ray on the internet.

The LEDs spread the light more. There are still shadows, but much reduced. The come on immediately (no warmup) and dim, although not as much as the halogens did. They are very bright, at least as bright as the 75 watt halogens. I recommend a dimmer!

Here's a picture with both bulbs - look at the two lights near the wall. The one on the left is the LED, right is halogen 75 watt. You can see the defined edge of the light for the halogen, but not the LED. Also, the LED light is higher up on the wall - more spread out and diffuse. You can also see a color difference - we prefer the LED because the halogen was quite white. There are two other bulbs in the pic - the front one is LED and the right one is halogen (see the shadows created by the one on the right).

{{!gwi}}

Good luck with your decision!

Thank you for all your responses, it has helped me decide. I am going to let him install the six can lights and if I don't like the lighting will switch out the bulbs for LED bulbs. Dumb question - I guess I can just switch bulbs, that the LED's will be compatible with the cans? Thanks again!!

The Cree's switched out pretty easily for us, but the directions are different for different can housing manufacturers. We had to remove the trim and an 'L' bracket where the bulb screws in, then replace with the Cree lights which include the trim. They are very well made.

I think you have another post about LEDs for 5" cans - sorry I can't help with this. I am not aware of any 5" LEDs but there might be some out there.

One other thing I wanted to mention. Cree is coming out with a cheaper LED for 6" cans - in fact, it might be available now. I think its the CR6 model, but I might be remembering that wrong. From what I heard, it won't be a lot cheaper and will not be quite as advanced as the LR6, but it certainly looks like a possible alternative. The new one dims more, too.