You need to think about the quality of light as well as the amount of light. Having all downlighting will result in your ceiling being dark, which will make the room seem more closed in. You may consider adding some flush ceiling or close to ceiling fixtures, to provide your ambient light layer. This will also soften the harsh shadows that can result from downlighting. Try standing under a recessed light and have someone observe the shadows on your face. To determine the light coverage, I found an extremely useful guide from Juno Lighting. Look in the back of their lighting catalog and it will show beam spreads for various fixtures and ceiling heights. Here is a link that might be useful: Juno Lighting catalog

WOW! Thanks everyone. I'm just now checking since Tuesday. Segbrown, your kitchen is to die for. Seriously, it's beautiful. I love your home. It reminds me very much of the one I left behind when I moved to TX. *sniff. sniff.* I LOVE your mix of hardware. It just look smashing. I didn't mix it up as well as you did because I only have a 10 x 10 kitchen in this house and I there isn't much to work with. ha. Unfortuantely, I didn't see your response before I ordered pulls last night from RH. I chickened out over the Aubrey due to the screws. I know. I know. I shouldn't have, but I can't stand the thought of 4 holes. It just seems excessive to me. Really...nothing compared to the Aubrey line, but I ordered Ephram because it's just simple and I think nobody will really notice them as they won't stand out. I'm sure it will be fine when all is said and done. I think I messed up because I didn't order any 6" pulls. I ordered 8" pulls for all the drawers because I didn't know what else to do. I have a 15" trash pull out and a 15" drawer above it. I have four 18" drawers, one 24" drawer and six 30" drawers. I'm wondering if I should get 6" pulls for the trash and drawer above it and maybe for the 18" drawers too. What do you all think? Would the 8" look to over-sized? I ordered the matching knobs for my 3 glass upper cabinets (I didn't want a lot of uppers in this small space so that's all I have)and the cabinets that are hinged. I don't even have an island to buy hardware for. ha. Lastly, I ordered the 12" ephram pulls for the pantry doors. I wasn't sure what to do about the pantry. Please give me your suggestions. Just because I ordered the hardware doesn't mean I can't re-order or change it up some. I'm not stuck with it. Ci Lantro, the pulls you shared are beautiful too. I'd return the RH pulls in a heartbeat, but like you said...they just don't have any sizes to choose from. I can't tell you how I've searched online to no avail for graduated sizes of pulls. Maybe we should go into the business because there is so little out there! fori...you made me LOL about the overused liquor cabinet. I think you are on to something there....ha. I love your sense of humour. I will post photos as soon as all is finished. It's about 80% now. Fair warning though....my kitchen is not the typical kitchen shown on this forum. I didn't have resale in mind when I put it together. It's colorful and happy and god knows....this house really needed a huge dose of both. It was a spec house built in 1981 and EVERYTHING was still orginal...all builder's grade...not one color was in the house but beige or brown. It was tired and dirty and worn out. The house lacks any architectural interest too...so....there was nothing to do but go with it and make it as happy as I could with color so you wouldn't notice the bones aren't very good. I would venture to guess most folks on this forum won't like it much. ha.

Links worked for me.. not sure what's up, but having looked at them both, I too prefer the second (deeper/bigger) pulls. Just remember to double check drawer/door clearances in corners.. just ask me how I know LOL.. ours had to be returned, as we didn't have the extra 1/2" to spare to by pass the other bank of drawers..argh! Ah well a new kitchen might solve that.. sometime in the future!

Our cabinets, though old, were in pretty good shape and now look lovely with our new paint job. I think with older homes it is wise, as you are doing, to consider the period of the home and work with it rather than do what is currently popular. And I think each home has different needs so I'm sure you'll love your new cabinets! I have to admit I was a little sad to see our 1950's GE Stratoliner range be sold but that electric cooktop was so hard to do anything but boil water on and not much could be on simultaneously, and I fell in love with the Lacanche. Anyway, I also agree per above posters that style wise it doesn't have to all be one era. Our vintage artwork is from the 30s, our red formica table and chairs (not in the pic) are from the 50s and our cabinet pulls are newer but probably 50s inspired. I love the pulls you picked and I like the 30s-50s updated kitchen in the last several posts, which seems like it would work with your bathroom staying as is. One thing we considered is that if we tore out the kitchen and put in a true MCM kitchen it would look wierd with our 1950s extensively pink tiled bathroom and then that would need to be updated. By keeping the style of our kitchen to its era, the kitchen and bathroom seem more in sync and I don't seeing us (other than putting in new grout and maybe painting the walls) changing our pink tiled bathroom, which also made our approach more cost effective. I think doing a blend of 30s-40s to early 50s, your bathroom would fit nicely into the updated kitchen.