I have a Samsung. I was told my several people at the store, repairmen, and consumer reports online that some of the LGs have a problem where the light inside does not turn off when the door is closed, and if you don't notice for a while, the fridge can actually start to melt and burn. Fire in the fridge - terrible idea. I LOVE my Samsung. It is the highest rated fridge by Consumer Reports (or was, when I bought it). The only thing to mention is that some of the early Samsungs had ice issues. They have "fixed it", but if you are the type of person who requires a cooler full of ice every so often, its not going to make enough. Also, you can sometimes hear the ice fall. These things don't bother me at ALL - I use a normal amount of ice, and the kitchen is across the house from the bedroom so I don't hear it. If you DO take out all the ice at once, you want to put a cup up to it and ask it for ice a few times - to remind it that it needs to make more. I never did that on my old fridge, but its not that big of a problem for me. After you remind it that its empty, it makes lots of ice plenty fast for me. I LOVE the Samsung though, and I would recommend it to anyone. It is the best appliance purchase I have ever made, and I have replaced every appliance in this house at least twice.

I centered our lights over the counter top to the best of our ability (beam locations etc). I think this causes the least amount of shadows but others my say there are better placements. I think it the lights are "behind" you, you will get shadows. Ours are placed as evenly as possible - but our beams got in the way, so there are some deviations. We did put the sink one over the sink and not in line with the others. We could have put another row of LEDs down the center but I went decorative - that way, if I want the incandescent look, I am set. Lake-Girl - ours our Cooper not Copper - and we went with 3000K. They are white not yellow or blue. I thought I screwed up as the Cree won't fit the 5 inch cans and thought I wanted the "incandescent" look. My DH said - light should be white not yellow -it is just we are so used to yellow. The trim kits for Cooper fit the 5 and 6 inch cans so the overall appearance is the same. The advantage of the 5 inch over 6 inch is you have a bit more flexibility in placement because they are a bit smaller. The disadvantage - at this point, there are not many choices for 5 inch.

or how about no recessed lights at all? Recessed lights are mini spot lights and provide directional lighting straight down in a very small throw pattern. it casts shadows and illuminates the tops of your head. Throwing out how horribly inefficient cans are for ceilings from an energy loss standpoint (assuming there is attic space above), I have never found them to be good lighting in kitchens for the above reasons. Good lighting should be based around two simple things- tasks at hand and general illumination of the space without shadowing. An easy solution to fix all above issues is to not use them at all. Indirect lighting will provide general illumination to the space without creating shadows as light is not directed at a specific target (such as your body for example). An easy way to provide indirect lighting in a kitchen is T5 or LED linear fixtures above your cabinets positioned at an angle to project light out into the space to bounce off the ceiling. I use a double T5 fixture above the cabinets typically. This creates a large amount of light that can easily light yours and most kitchens. Next focus on task lighting to be directed at the tasks...your hands. You do not want your head to be blocking this. Standard island pendants typically work great for this since it directs the light straight down onto the work surface. T5 or LED continuous linear under cabinet lighting works great for other areas with cabinets above. The result is a bright, shadowless, illuminated space with plenty of light directly on your task and eliminating the sea of cans in a ceiling.

I've grown up having a GD in my life, so it's something I consider ubiquitous. However, I've been thinking of giving it up when we reno the kitchen. Primarily because our drain is a mess-it goes out to our back yard where years ago there was a septic tank. Later, when the house was hooked in to City sewer, instead of turning the drain pipe around so it drained out to the street, they put a U joint and had it go out back then out to the front. We learned this because every single year, usually around Thanksgiving, I'd have to have the rooter company come out and rooter our drain. Eventually they ran a camera down and found out that was the main cause of our backing up issue. So I rarely use the GD now, except, as some have noted, small bits that rinse off the dishes after being scraped. I also run citrus peels through on occasion, but never anything bigger than a peanut size. I'll never forget on my 9th birthday I had a sleepover. 14 little girls all camped out in the front room. Typical ghost stories and games had been played before we all fell asleep. Sometime during the night two girls got up to get a glass of water and one accidently turned on the DW switch thinking it was a light switch. A spoon had gotten down into the drain and the noise-the horrible grinding/clanking caused 14 pre-teen girls to shriek bloody murder. I remember my dad running into the front room in his underwear to see what was going on and my mom rushing to the kitchen to turn off the disposal. After that I wasn't allowed to have sleep overs.