Lighting is one of this week's rotating renovation obsessions, so I understand your dilemma. I made an appointment with a lighting designer at a good sized local lighting store last week ($75 for an hour, which I think was money well spent), so that might be an option for you if you live in a place where that's available, as I found it really helpful. Soft, incandescent-like dimming is a goal for me too, and I know that most LEDs just get dimmer rather than also getting warmer like good old "real" bulbs. Satco, however, makes warm dimming bulbs, and Juno has warm dimming housings. I haven't actually seen either of them, so I can't comment on how they look, and there may be others out there too, but that's an option you might want to throw into the mix (even though we're supposed to be clarifying things, not making them more complicated!) Let us know what you decide and how you like it. I keep wishing there were ONE easy area, but I haven't found it so far.

cherylbirth - degrees Kelvin (K) - measures color Lumens - measures brightness Watts (w) - measures energy used 3500K isn't a measurement of brightness, it is a measure of color temperature. The lower the degrees Kelvin ("K"), the more warm/yellow/orange the lights look. The higher the degrees Kelvin, the more cool/blue/purple the lights look. In my opinion - and this is all subjective! - 3500K would be too "white" to use in most areas of my home. It looks bluish to me and makes people look kind of pasty. It's fine in our garage or storage area in our basement, but not in my bedroom. For people who grew up with incandescent bulbs, a "soft white" color is going to look most familiar - the range for soft white is 2700K-3000K. That's what most people are used to at this point in time. Anything below that will look very orange. Anything above that will look very blue. So if you want to get something that will look like a "typical" incandescent lightbulb, then something in this range would be ideal. A related issue is that most LED lights dim differently than incandescents. Incandescent lights will get warmer as they dim. So when they are at 100% brightness, they might be 3000K. As they dim, they can get down to 2400K. So an incandescent light bulb will look pretty white when it is at full brightness and get more yellow/orange as you dim it. Again, this is what our brains are used to seeing if we grew up with this type of lightbulb. Most LED lights do not get warmer as they dim. So a 3000K LED light will typically remain at 3000K when dimmed, it will just emit less light. This will look unnatural to someone who grew up using incandescent bulbs, since we are used to the light getting more orangey as it dims. The newer LED technology adjusts for this and allows the lightbulbs to mimic incandescents more closely. So the newer LED lights with dim-to-warm technology will look 3000K at full brightness, and get closer to 2600K when dimmed. Most of them don't get to the 2400K range like an incandescent, but the effect is better than nothing. These LED lights are the closest option right now to mimicking an incandescent light. All of the discussion about what looks best is subjective, but I do think it is distracting to mix colors of lights within a room. Maybe you can do everything in your bathroom at a cooler temperature, and everything in your bedroom at a warmer temperature, but to me, it looks very odd to see the different tones of lights in the same room. Instead of blending in and just lighting up the space, they become their own element with different colors scattered around the room.

It would appear that those hanging-wine-glasses thingies and the shelves would block any the light from recessed lights installed in the bar ceiling and centered front-to-back. How about installing a flush aluminum LED channel in the ceiling and/or walls a short distance from the front of the bar. Light would not be blocked. You could install a dimmable, "tunable" LED strip light in the channel.

I would use one like that closest to the photographer as its lens is recessed slightly which may result in less glare. If the switch visible at the bottom of the photo is attached to that light, then the light's color temperature is selectable. That's useful. (I prefer 2700K -- warmest -- or 3000K but it's your decision). I'd use 4" lights such as these Halo RL4DM. Large, 6" lights are old-fashioned and ugly. Most modern? Go trimless like this Commercial Electric 91582. @Patricia Colwell: "Make sure these are not integrated LEDs" They are and there's nothing wrong with them.