Thanks everyone for your input. solarpowered, that's the existing subpanel in the closet. I'm hopeful (but also doubtful) that maybe they will let me keep it there. I've had conflicting advice - some say that because I'm not adding any circuits, I will be able to keep it. Others say that just touching the panel will constitute a change and will require moving it. I think if we have to move it, we might move it to the outside of the same closet (facing the kitchen entryway). patty-cakes, thanks for the tip on the pendant lights. I think we will stick with 2. (Which is also probably for the best, as 3 would've given us problems with Title 24 too). I am concerned about the ceiling looking like a landing strip and am trying to weigh that with all of my other concerns. I'm finding this really difficult to find the perfect solution. modernhouse, the indirect pendant is an interesting idea. Do you have any pictures of your kitchen and light fixture? I also posted this question on the lighting forum and someone there suggested using a ceiling fixture instead of recessed lights too. In some ways I really like this idea - that the indirect light off the ceiling would be softer than downlighting. I'm worried though that it would not give me enough fluorescent wattage to offset the halogen pendants. Also, because our cabinets will be so dark, I was hoping to cast some pools of light down the cabinet fronts. lightguy and dim4fun, thanks for the discussion about LEDs. I'm interested to see what these lights look like. We have LED lights in the garden, but they have a bluish-tinge. It sounds like these recessed LEDs have a warmer color, similar to incandescent. Dimmable is great too. How do they compare price-wise to fluorescent cans? I will have fluorescent undercabinet lighting, so that would be my main task lighting. The cans would be more for ambient lighting and to light cabinet fronts. If I have 2 x 50W halogen pendants, 68W of undercabinet fluorescents, then if I went with LED cans I should be able to make Title 24. Anyway, I'll look into it some more. Meanwhile, I have come up with a lighting plan attempt using fluorescent and halogen. In the diagram below, green is Fl undercabinet lighting, yellow are halogen pendants, red are recessed fluorescents (26W lamps in 42W cans) and blue are dimmable recessed incandescents. I know, it looks like a lot of light. It may well be too much light and too many holes. Here's my thinking behind it - I figure that the blue incandescents would be on a dimmer and would be dimmed most if not all of the time. If we're in the kitchen cooking, we would have the red fluorescents on. The kitchen is visible from the living and dining areas, so when we're not in the kitchen, we could just have the pendants and the blue incandescent lights on low for ambience. In both instances, we would have the U/C lights on. Is this a stupid idea? Would it look odd to have 2 kinds of recessed lights? I'm totally out of my element here, but trying to educate myself. Any suggestions welcome. I'm also open to the idea of a ceiling fixture, if I can also find a way to put some light on the upper cabinets and have some dimmable light for ambience (maybe I could use the LEDs for this ...)

thanks dim4fun & homepro01. homepro01, to answer your question, yes, Fluorescent cans do count toward the high efficacy wattage in title 24. (Only the kind that take only fluorescent bulbs. You can't do it by plugging in fluorescent bulbs into incandescent fixtures.) I checked out Contrast Lighting on line but I'm not sure whether the cans (MR16s) would be considered high efficacy? Aren't they halogen? dim4fun, for those Juno lights, do I butt them up against each other to cover every linear inch under cabinets? If I stick with the non-cheating plan, and go with 5" cans, that gives me 6x26=156 watts in high efficacy watts in cans, plus about 120 watts in undercab Junos. I getting close...only 26 watts to go! How about one more can in front of the french door ? Is there a better place?

After much searching on LightingDirect.com, I think I have found a large island pendant that will speak to the island fan. I have also found my favourite semi flush light (most of them are not nice). We will have two semi flush lights in the kitchen for ambient light. These semi-flush lights offer uplight illumination. The large island pendant will off down lighting task light. There are matching wall sconces to go on the decorator plate wall, and small pendants for in front of the windows and/or over the clean-up sink area. The sconces and small pendants are from the same lighting collection as the semi-flush lights. The big drum pendant for over the island is a different lighting company. Here are my favourites. Please let me know what you think, and especially if you think the island light will go well with the island vent (be in balance too). Thanks, Carol Large light to balance the island fan for downlighting task light for over the 10 foot island (light is 19 inch wide with three lights) Made by Minka Lavery Kitchen semi-flush for general ambient light (gives up lighting to kitchen). Made by Maxim from their Finesse collection. Possible sconce on wall with decorator plates (goes with the semi-flush above). Made by Maxim from the same Finesse collection. Possible small pendants for area in front of windows and 1 or 2 over sink peninsula. Made by Maxim from the same Finesse collection. Now I need to calculate lumens (to make sure I have enough light and not too much), and fiddle with the pot light placement. I also need to find a way to Photoshop these lights into my kitchen to see if I am comfortable with the visual clutter. Carol

I do think 4 cans on the sink wall is overkill. Somebody over on lighting had a formula for spacing of recessed cans. It was something like 6" Halos in an 8' ceiling put out 4' radius circles or something like that. The end result was you were supposed to cut out bunches of scale sized circles and lay them over your layout until you had full coverage then pin them to mark where your cans hit. Wish I could be more help. OT I'm completely jealous of your Tulikivi.