mimipadv....the bullet pendants I used over "my" island are little and produce a 12" light pool under each....buuuuuuuut the glass globe ones in my new remodel hold a 100watt regular bulb and really light it up! :0) So it makes a BIG difference in the pendant you choose. I still have canned lights at this house I own, but the tract lights are pointed over the island too(it has hockey puck task lights)....with the pole, there was just too much going on for pendants to look good. Here's the one I'm using on my current project. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Murray-Feiss-Lighting-P1267BS-Cumberland-One-Light-Mini-Pendant-Brushed-Steel-/311378534714?hash=item487f9b613a:g:bHwAAOSwcBhWVnpz

Personally, I would go with the recessed light - less is more, and like you said, not so cluttered feeling (and trust me, I am wild for pendant lights!) In the middle of our kitchen remodel but the lights are in and we have the recessed light over the sink on a separate switch which gives options for all lights or just a really good one over the sink. First lamp seems simpler and again (just my likes, not yours!) I like the first one better in your space. HTH (PS Working on pendant lights over island - have a wild yen for Steam Punk lights, but y'all may hear from me later. :) ).

I agree on the flushmount being wrong. I've thought about a flat alternative that wouldn't hinder the view. With the recessed ceiling I had read somewhere the rule of thumb was 36" over table plus and extra 3" for every foot higher ceiling. This recess appears to be about 3 feet in depth. Haven't measured it exactly. That would make the drop to the table 36" Plus 9" for extra height. Does that sound right?

A little more explanation leading up to a lighting suggestion after reviewing your provided layout: In general concept, when you place recessed-style ceiling lighting at the counter edge, you are providing task lighting on your counter workspace as well as simultaneous throw onto the floor adjacent to the cabinet. So the fixture is providing general ambient lighting for the room, but since the kitchen functions require more footcandles, these ceiling lights provide the high lumens needed for task lighting and you exploit those. Your upper and lower cabinet interiors/drawers will also be well-lit, without the shadow caused by the person standing there. With most lumenaires, because of it's ~12" placement away from the upper cabinet you will get a small hotspot or visual cone on the door, but that is a tradeoff to solving the task lighting with a catch-all solution. Because undercabinet lighting is close to the surface (both counter and backsplash) and it's cone of throw is "fenced in," a fixture style with lower lumens is chosen rendering it more of a "supplemental" lighting to the task lighting of the ceiling fixtures. But, you cannot strictly define it as only task lighting because of the low lumens, the sometimes haphazardness of upper cabinets to your work surface, and it's exploitation for accent lighting and layering in concept. You could raise the lumens to focus on task lighting and limit ceiling fixtures to ambient, however you are sometimes left with a poor solution where you can't balance the lighting between ambient, task, and accent, nor provide task lighting where you need it, illustrated in this example: Of course, these principles are general solutions to what you will be presented with in most kitchens. That is, using fixtures that are efficient in cost, installation, and aesthetics, thus a lumenaire that can cover a combination of ambient, task, and accent lighting to some degree. If your project's characteristics have attributes that need a little adjustment in the strict definition of which fixtures provide which lighting methods, then that is completely acceptable. You would see this often with high-end kitchens, specific design aesthetics, prominent circulation, some galley kitchens, or non-mainstream cabinet layouts. _____________________ Looking at your specific perspective drawing, you have an entirety of 24" deep upper cabinets and very minimal wall counter space. So if your kitchen genre calls for an efficient solution to lighting, then I would suggest 3" recessed cans which can be spaced closer to each other and have no choice but to be placed within the aisles. However, the primary purpose of these is to provide task light within the upper and lower cabinets, so they would not be centered over walkways in a grid to light up your path, but placed appropriately for a cabinet/set of cabinets. Then with the 3 enclosed wall counter spaces, where the range (which the hood will probably have it's own spots) and beverage appear to have the uppers too high to have accent lighting double as supplemental counter task lighting, utilizing under cabinet 2" ("puck style" if need be) fixtures directed at the counter. As far as the island and pendants, it may be too tight of a width of room, too much vertical orientation with the tall cabinets and mostly skinny-width doors, in what looks like a 9' ceiling, and no location where you would get a broad, setback, visual perspective to appreciate the proportion of any pendants, all of which might render the pendants "invisible" but at the same time cluttering the visual of the cabinet faces. And along with your non-symmetrical sink placement and only 3.5' counter width, it may be best to only have recessed lights. But, it just depends on the pendant fixture chosen, how transparent and how well it can provide task lighting, and your cabinet finishes/styles. Along the beverage wall I would definitely place uplighting to the ceiling and make sure the lumens balance with the counter lighting below. If your aesthetic and budget is at a higher level, say to match the rest of house or tigerwood cabinets, then another route is for 2" ceiling fixtures (which would have more design-oriented lumenaire selections) and they would light the walkways with general ambient light, but the interior of cabinets would need a light for each shelf.