Posted this originally in the kitchen forum, but this looks like it might be a better venue! Originally I was going to buy light-colored maple cabinets and use a single overhead fixture plus undercabinet lighting in my small NYC galley kitchen (7'x10', door at one end, window at the other end). (Actually, *originally* I was *just* going to do the overhead fixture, but I was convinced by the wonderful folks on the kitchen forum that I should have the u/c lighting as well.) As it turns out, I bought medium-colored maple cabinets instead, and now I feel I might want more light. I think the cabinets would look nicer (lighter?) with more light thrown at them. So even though I still like the way the single overhead fixture would look (and how inexpensive it is - I was considering a $50 fixture from Home Depot!), I'm wondering if I should really go for recessed lighting - or something else??? Not sure what the options are here. Recessed lighting looks kind of generic to me, but I know it would give me good even light. (How many cans would you put in my size kitchen??) Are there other types of fixtures that would work for me? Does anyone have any ideas? Pictures? Go ahead - light my kitchen!!! ;-) Thanks in advance for all help!

Thanks live_wire_oak - I find myself agreeing with nearly all of your style points. I don't think we realized how prominent the roof was until we really spent some time looking at it from the street. I don't think changing the roof is in the budget now (it's pretty new), but we'll definitely keep that in mind. We're both really intrigued by the suggestion of a slab door - what is that? We picked up some paint samples yesterday. Old gutters are down and the house is already looking cleaner, even without the new ones up. We picked a gutter color that is called 'wicker', and had SW mix paint to match. Here's a pic of the samples we put up. It's dim - by the time the paint had dried, this area (east facing, under covered patio) is shaded - but you see the colors we're talking about, over the green and next to the brick. Trim/gutters - light tan (color matched wicker metal gutters) Front Door - BM Currant Red (1323) Shutters (if we do -- causing marital strife) - SW Umber Brick (more marital strife - not painting though!) - 6140 Moderate White. I like the green but we compromised and are currently planning on going with the tan color -- which we color matched from the gutter color we're putting up. That will be all the trim. The dark brown we were thinking for shutters, but if we don't do shutters... Clearly we won't use it :) Would you consider using that brown to paint the aluminum visible in the picture of the front? We'll replace the windows -- they're 1966 single pane glass -- but not sure when, and we don't like the aluminum lines.(could be usable) I like your suggestion on the planters and I'll consider today a success if I can get them dug up before the Rangers game :) Melanie, I believe, on the landscape forum, suggested creeping thyme -- I think we'll do something like that to try and break the planter box line. I also like the idea of semi-circle as landscape bed. My kids aren't playing out there - too close to the busy street - and having something to break up the monotony and add curves would be great. Melanie -- thank you for explaining! I'm looking at his books on ebay now. Thank you SO much for your help here and on the other forum! You've made us like our house a lot more. Summary on what we're going to do this week: Gutters (wicker above unless someone can talk me out of it in the next day) installed, trim/fascia/sofits painted to match. Paint front door Remove boxwood in planter boxes up front Pause and evaluate.... To sum up questions: If we don't do the shutters in Umber -- which my wife wants to do, and my painter assured her it was easy to shave the raised brick to install them, what else can we do in the brown to pop? The window frames? We had a decorator come to help with color selection, and she was a strong advocate of both shutters and painted brick. My wife is still on board with leaving the brick unpainted for now, but the shutters idea has come back with a vengeance. For what it's worth, most house in the neighborhood do ... But, this decorator also suggested we call a Realtor and ask for advice, which is exactly what I DON'T want to do. I want it to look good and not offend those that know what they're looking at! We were going to paint the windows in the white color, but would the brown pop? Give us some color without having to throw up fake shutters? VERY interested in learning more about doing a copper door. We're going to paint the door and frame in that red color above - more of a magenta. Finally, what are you guys thinking about the below picture? Dim again - my photo skills aren't the best - but this is an angle shot of my back patio. Same brick, which you can see. To the left is another bay window just like the ones out front, this one into the breakfast room/kitchen. The ceiling you'll see the drywall portion is white -- and then the wood portion turns to the trim color. The decorator we had suggested we paint the same color, the moderate white, so there's not a line -- opening the space up. But the problem is, if I paint that white, I think I have to carry the white all the way around the house under the roof, meaning the wood on the underside of the roof would be white, the rest of the trim tan. (We're thinking the white above) Or -- can I just tape off a logical line somewhere and transition from white to the trim color? Or .. I can just paint the ceiling the trim color, but then it all kinda blends in. THANK YOU!

Katrina, I am very pleased with my new lighting. We installed canopy mounted spotlights. I much prefer the look to recessed lighting, and I like a minimalist fixture for an 8' ceiling. If you use a wide angle bulb (we had to order them) you can achieve excellent lighting. My fixtures are MP lighting canopy mounted spotlights with an aluminum finish (X01 C3 - 1 NS NA 1 - MC). They were expensive and we had to wait for them. Each fixture is connected to its own junction box. Currently they are lamped with wide angle Sylvania Tru-Aim Titan covered halogen (but they can be lamped with SORAA LED as well). We found the Sylvania to be much nicer than the equivalent Philips. The lamp (= bulb) is naked so you see colour from the reflective part on top and the Philips threw harsh pink lines on the ceiling. The lights are on dimmers so energy savings are possible there. Because of the wide angle of the halogen, we only needed six fixtures to light our small kitchen. For choosing ceiling lighting I was inspired by one of my favourite kitchens: Lauren Liess'. As you can see, drywall & painting remains to be done.

White. Pretend they aren't there. Add groovy cool stuff elsewhere (like the pool bar!). Also go out of your way to be sure to get low profile ones like your old ones seem to be and not the easy-to-find kind of too deep for your house ones. You want them to disappear. Boxy is good. Did your house have them at all originally? I guess they're nice to have regardless, at least over doorways. (By the way, nice to see someone with an actual fence around their pool! GW seems to have an awful lot of people who don't mind drowning children. The pool building forum scares me. :P)