The kitchen counter receptacles are on a pair of 20 amp 'small appliance' circuits. You can plug in all the portable appliances you want, and themn when the breaker trips when the toaster comes on you can unplug them. They are portable and thus considered temporary. A permanently installed light (even if word and plug connected) is no longer a portable device. It is about making sure the circuits do not get loaded down with permanent items that will then cause overloads when the typical high power items are used.

We found it helpful when considering this choice to think about the color of the lighting. Fluorescents are "cold," and will not show the true color of your countertop or backsplash. That may not be important to you, but if you're installing $$$ granite or quartz, please spend the extra money on LEDs so you can enjoy your beautiful surfaces and appreciate their true colors. We chose Kichler LEDs for our kitchen and put fluorescents in the DR (because we don't spend a lot of time in there). Our LED UCLs are now failing (18 months after installation) and our lighting provider has agreed to provide replacement fixtures (but not installation) for free. I'm more than a little annoyed, but still love my LED UCLs.

To follow up, the Juno lights as installed look good so far (although my kitchen is flooded with natural light right now, so I won't know for sure until it's dark out) - I took a chance but I love that there's an off/switch on each of the 3 bars (2 24's and 1 12) on the left hand side and a dimmer dial on the right, plus the on/off switch on the wall for all 3 (which are connected), so we can very much customize the amount of light is on and off each time we turn the switch on and off on the wall. or we can leave the wall switch on and use the on-bar controls. It's a lot more versatility than any other LED light that I've seen. And when on full blast the lights are pretty bright, and when dimmed they are pretty dim, so far. What I might do to get around the problem of having reflections on the shiny (Zodiaq cloud white) countertop, is use the stick-on diffusers provided with the environmental lights package, and put those on the Junos and not return them to environmental lights. One thing re environmental lights - they know their stuff, were VERY helpful and I'd love to work with them. I just prefer a dimmer dial. And Juno's customer service is not 24/7 like some electrical support shops - it's just M-F, which I didn't like as much. And the dimmer-dial LEDs we used aren't even on its website, for whatever reason. I tried to call its customer service line today to ask why they aren't on the website and make sure they still support them before deciding which to install - but they aren't available today (a Sunday). For what it's worth, the Juno bars we installed have a 5 year warranty and the environmental lights have a 3 year warranty. I'm not sure why the difference and it wasn't a big factor in deciding, but worthy of note.

The recessed lights are in the correct position along the perimeter of the counter top edge but you need double the qty. I agree that the island light, while attractive, doesn’t provide task lighting for the island. Are the bottoms of the upper cabinets recessed? Could you add LED strips without them being visible or are the cabinet bottoms flush with the doors? If the bottoms are flush you could router slimline LEDs into the cabinet floors so they aren’t visible when standing at the counter.