I could really use some help figuring out how to lay out the lights in our kitchen. We are completely remodeling our kitchen including a new layout. My husband is building all the cabinets. We are about halfway done at this point. We were able to get our island with sink and lower cabinets and countertops in before Christmas. He still needs to build the uppers, the pantry cabinet and make all the drawer fronts, door faces, and side panels. We’re on hold until the weather warms up as his workshop is not heated, so we figured now was a good time to work on the lighting.

Currently the only light is from a ceiling fan/lamp combo, It’s bright enough for general lighting but the perimeter counters need work lights. We will have under cabinet lighting but we won’t really have many hanging cabinets because we have two windows. Also, I don’t intend to keep a ceiling fan there, its not needed. Our plan was a couple of pendants over the island and some work lighting. We are going to go with track lighting as we are not sure there would be enough depth in the ceiling for canned lighting (there is a room above the kitchen) and we don’t want to tear the ceiling up to see or put in a drop ceiling. Ceilings are 9.75ft high. I really don’t know how to go about planning a lighting layout.

Here is our floor plan (measurements are probably not exact anymore but I don’t think that’s important for this):

Idea 1: My husband was thinking we would run the track in and out over the perimeter counters (see picture). I feel like this might look weird.

Idea 2: I was thinking we just needed a couple small sections right over those open parts of the counter under the windows, the corner and the section by at the end will have the under cabinet lights. (Example in picture on right) However he says this would be hard to wire for. We currently have one wire run up above where the refrigerate sits that is meant for the track lights.

Would love any thoughts or ideas. Here's my attempt at showing the layout: Idea 1 on left, Idea 2 on right:

Here are some pictures of the kitchen as it stands now, I made an attempt to show how the upper cabinets will be laid out (done in powerpoint, I promise the real things will be prettier!). The cabinet fronts will be simpler shaker in unstained cherry and my husband wants to take them to the ceiling. I am trying to keep the kitchen as bright as I can. Even though we have the windows we don’t get direct light through them and it was so dark before. It’s bright now, but I think it will darken once we have the upper cabinets and wood faces on.