The human eye is not capable of distinguishing the difference between 2700 & 3000degK The Kelvin luminance scale was originated for the photography industry to indicated the white balance of photographic film. Try a personal experiment..On a bright sunny day look out your window at a white object then look at a white object in the room under incandescent lighting. You will notice that the incandescent light emits a slight yellowish cast. Now if you come back at night when its dark that same white object under the incandecent light will appear white and you won't notice the yellowish color of the light. That is because you eye has automatically compensated for the color balance of the light source. In the photography business they were sometimes shooting outdoors under natural daylight, while other times they were shooting in a studio with incandescent lights, but if they used the outdoor film indoors the photos all came out with a yellowish cast. It would be easy to make film dyes that would reproduce white under nearly any lighting condition, but they needed a standard so the film manufacturer could inform the photographer what type of film it was. To create a standard they put a piece of pure carbon in a lab furnace and began heating it. It started out coal black, but as it was heated it began to glow, first a dull yellow, then a yellowish red, to a bright red to a reddish blue, then to a blue like the gas flame on a stove, and on until it was a pure white matching daylight white. They recorded the temperatures as the colors changed and they determined that the glow from the carbon matched incandescent light at 3200 to 3400 degrees Kelvin and the bluish white light of daylight was at 5500 to 6000 deg kelvin. Although there are dozens of special films for photography, basically the two that most consumers are familiar with are indoor film (32K) and outdoor film (64K). If you have a digital camera it probably has a White balance control. Try an experiment for yourself. Set your cameras white balance to incandescent and shoot a couple pictures indoors, then switch flourescent and shoot the same pictures again, then switch to daylight and once again shoot the same pictures and you will see the difference in color balance. Up until the late 90's primarily all we used for indoor lighting was incandescent so there was not much emphasis of telling you the color temp of the lights. Some incandescent and flourescent lights have an internal coating on the glass envelope and the lamps were listed as daylight balanced, but nobody paid much attention to that. With the advent of the mini flourescents and LED lights we are seeing some rather radical color shifts so now the industry is labelling the lamps with the Kelvin Luminance number....Basically the hotter the Kelvin number the whiter the light output will be.

I've stopped trying to figure this out until the lighting industry makes it easier. I've got better things to do <lol> Meanwhile, I'm using my stash of incandescents. I like a warmer tone...however, I haven't yet replaced the kitchen recessed lighting with LEDs. I'll probably want a less warm bulb. And I don't like the way the dimmable LEDs dim. They don't go as low as incandescents and the color doesn't shift to warm reddish color as they dim.

Those are quite handsome fixtures! My perspective: excessively bright and white outdoor lighting is interfering with mating of fireflies, circadian rhythms/sleep disruption in humans (yes, currently being studied as to the effect this is having on the incidence of stroke and other disorders) and other environmental disruptions. So I would say go for the lowest color temperature and lowest lumens that will serve necessary purpose, and also have an eye as to whether the lights will be shining into a neighbor's bedroom or even into the house across the street (as one does on my street, not mine thankfully!) Are you saying that each bulb will be 400+ lumens, and 3 bulbs per fixture?

Thank you ALL for your comments and advice! I will get a sample of SW Pure White to compare it with the other options. Among the initial colors, I am now actually leaning towards Decorator's White for the walls - it definitely works in the kitchen and it actually may balance our (mostly) warm furniture in the living room. Using this paint in both rooms would tie the two spaces together. For the trims, I am leaning towards Behr Ultra Pure White or BM Chantilly Lace. Considering this is a room that gets A LOT of natural light (particularly in the morning, windows facing east and south), would there be any particular recommendation for the sheen? I was thinking eggshell for walls and satin for trims. We have a small daughter, so we value durability and ease to clean...