Lighting ... I love lighting, but always give a bit of a sigh when deving into the topic. It is not a simple thing. The first question you need to address is the purpose of the lighting that you are talking about and how that fits within the multiple purposes for lighting in various areas of your home. This will help you determine the required brightness, focus, colour temperature and any lux concerns. Once determined, this guides selection of fixtures and bulbs (or sometimes, bulbs first as fixtures do not take all types of bulbs). As David notes, there's a balancing act involved at various stages. Lumens is the total output of a light. The effect of the light is another story. After all, a 100 watt incandescent bulb 10 feet away is not much good for reading, but the same bulb in a tableside lamp may be ideal. Lux is the measure of light on an object. It is lux that matters for tasks and for preservation of artefacts such as paintings and textiles becuase it is a measure of the actual light at the point it hits the object. If the lux is too high, the object is damaged. Note museum lighting versus kitchen lighting. That said, lux is the least accessible rating because it is infinitely variable. You won't find a lux rating on any box--you need to develop an eye...and where valuable artefacts are concerned, use a digital reader to measure the lux. Kelvin ratings indicate the colour of light.Warm, flattering candlelight is about 1800 Kelvin, the incandescents we're all used to rate closer to 2800-3200, and the cool white often seen in warehouses is over 4000. This is colour, not intensity. Do you want warm, cool, or somewhere between? CRI is another colour temperature rating scheme--but where Kelvin is relatively straightforward, in my view CRI is confusing becuase the rating varies according to the type of light. For example, a metal halide light with a CRI of 60 has a Kelvin rating around 5500--a "cool" bluish light. Some florescent white lights rated CRI 60 are closer to 3500 Kelvin, a much warmer light. A standard incandescent bulb rated around CRI 95 has a Kelvin rating around 2800. A warm white florescent is CRI 55. Again, the effect is a matter of function and design--the technical solution comes later. I hope and imagine that a lighting designer would address he challenge in that way. In my own family room, we have dimmable halogens in the 3000 Kelvin range and accent LED lighting over the fireplace that is a cool white in the 4000 Kelvin range. This approach means that when all lights are on, we do not just get "more light", we get a contrast in the type of lighting which accentuates architectural details in the room. Good luck - have fun!

You cannot do such a large arch - the overall height of this piece will be approx 18" ( 84 - 18 = 66 ) Do a 2" - 2 1/2" arch on the valance. If you do a column on each side you could then do a crown molding detail that will return on the column and not interfere with the doors of the cabinets. The opening underneath needs to be based on the actual exhaust unit that is required for your range - your appliance folks should be able to help you with that. It will be a challenge since you have a reduced ceiling height and you have an offset vent line ( which needs to be changed - in most areas flex duct is not allowed ). You could also do a chimney style Here are a couple of pictures for short mantles you could create Good luck - I hope you can figure something out!

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.

@dchall_san_antonio: "If you want it to look like daylight, then pick 6,000 K temp lights." Never use 6000K bulbs for outdoor (or any) lighting. Unfortunately, that fixture is a poor choice for outdoor lighting as it shines outward rather than downward. Outdoor lighting should follow the Five Principles of Respnsible Outdoor Lighting from Dark Sky International. For that fixture, Use 2700K E12 LED bulbs with as low a wattage as possible. The fixture appears to have a reflector at the back. I'd try a pair of frosted bulbs (to reduce glare): -- 300 Lumens - 3 Watt - 2700 Kelvin - LED Chandelier Bulb if that weren't bright enough, try -- 500 Lumens - 4 Watt - 2700 Kelvin - LED Chandelier Bulb or if were too bright, try -- 150 Lumens - 2 Watt - 2700 Kelvin - LED Chandelier Bulb