I think your plan for six lights is better from a function perspective. The electrician's plan for four lights is better from a ceiling aesthetics perspective.

Thanks so much! After deliberating with my mom, we came up with a four light option, that’s a compromise between the two. What do you think of this one?

The design is polished and the designer is creative and very professional.Local citations

IMO with kitchen lighting more iis better. BTW those GU10 can all be replaced with LEDs with a GU 10 base if you want. The pots should be max. 4" and IMO 6 for sure The light over the peninsula should light that are and all the lighting should be LED 4000K The undercabinet lighting the same . I like the pots to be on one switch, the undercabinet on another and the peninsula light on another . I never use dimmers in a kitchen but I do like to be able to just turn on one part for a midnight snack for instance .

Some people dislike recessed lights, so make sure you understand that when reading comments. I don't have a problem with recessed lights and have lots of them! I made sure they were separated in groups with different switches (with dimmers) so lots of flexibility. I also have pendant(s)/chandeliers as a different lighting option, in addition to the recessed lights. I like having flexibility in how I can light my rooms for different activities and/or times of day.

My preference is for 3500K LED lights.

Remember the general guideline of having the lights over the counter being about 18" off the wall; you want the lights to light your countertop, not the back of your head, causing a shadow on the countertop.

Our kitchen is about 13 x 10 and we have 8 can lights located over the counters and 2 pendants on the breakfast bar. Just fine. Also, pre-wire for LED strip lighting under the cabinets.

Its a kitchen. It should be bright enough to do surgery. You need at least six cans, I would do the four light layout you recently posted with two more in the middle (near right edge of sink and center of peninsula) My preference is standard medium base cans because you have the most options for bulb type, I always get a par30 3000k...

Forget everything about placement the electrician has said when you plan. Identify the work zones. This will be task lighting. Light those with two 4" led cans 6" in from the edge of the counter and offset to each side of where you'll be standing. This eliminates all shadows of what you're cutting. Choose fixtures capable with a led spot bulb of delivering a minimum of 450 lumens at the counter. That depends on your ceiling height. Intensity decreases with spread as the distance gets farther from the bulb. Pick the right color led. 3500k is popular. 2700 is an incandescent yellow warm white. 4000k is harsher more blue white. CRI of 90 is important for realistic color. Electricians developed these can products. Home - DMF Lighting

Lighting in the aisles is ambient lighting. Easier and less specific. You can go value pricing with 6" basic cans and 13w led A19 bulbs from Costco.

The brighter the kitchen...the better! I think I would do three at the edge of the peninsula and move the one by the fridge closer to fridge. And another in between the two you have on the sink wall.

Our kitchen is about 17x20 and we have 17 (!!) 4" can lights (wafer type with a small baffle). This includes three at the working edge of the island (island is 80" long) plus we have pendants over the island. I had our electrician center the ones along the counters at 22" from the wall and 42" from the wall on our pantry wall. Ours are adjustable and I tried them at 4000k and WOW...I could have definitely performed surgery in there! 3500k is my preference. Good luck with your project!

Thank you all! Alas the electrician already roughed everything this morning and went with the 6-can layout, with roughin for LED tape UCL, two lights over the sink, and pendant on the peninsula. We will go with 3000K.

All lights are on dimmers and unfortunately the studs block multigang placement for this remodel, but I was tipped off about a new Lutron Caseta remote paddle switch that looks just like a regular switch and everything will be on a remote 3-way dimmer switch.

By the way, for future passerbyers, it seems like there are a few schools of thought on ideal placement of recessed lights…from electricians vs light experts/kitchen designers… I had read advice about placing lights away from the wall at 18” (design forums, rationale is it is the halfway point between face of uppers, and edge of counter, maximizing unobstructed light on counters/prep area, supplementing with undercabinet lighting), 24” (kitchen design forum feedback, placing at the edge of countertop, to light more space on your counter, including reducing shadow cast by the uppers closer to backsplash, but accepting some shadow from your body) and 30” (electrician, aesthetic and aisle lighting….this is what confused me and brought me here, do not recommend, it will cast shadows on your counters).

I guess the efforts are to optimize lighting content of uppers, counters, while minimizing shadow cast by uppers and by our heads and bodies, with lights to the right and left of where you’d work.

The answer is probably somewhere between 18” to 24”. Since I am lazy and I hate turning on my undercabinet lighting, and am not a serious home cook anyway, I wanted my ceiling lights to be the main daily workhorse light… they ended up at the edge of my countertop - 25”, slightly in from 26” depth countertops… My uppers will come out to 15”. it was done this morning before I saw some of your comments based on the attached diagram of lighting tips from another houzz pro user: https://www.houzz.com/magazine/how-to-properly-light-your-kitchen-counters-stsetivw-vs~117403233

I only bought a box of six cans! But I think I could have gone with Hallett & Co.’s suggestion of putting six neatly along the edges but I hadn’t thought of that! Oh well.

All in all, we probably have enough lighting - since our house is small and open, we are probably ok at ~7500 lumens for a 130 sqft kitchen. Another rule of thumb I saw was to multiply the square footage by 30 or 40 foot candles to get a lumen range. For example: 100 square feet x 30 to 40 foot candles = 3000 to 4000 lumens.

We will have LED tape that is 300 lumens per linear ft. (~10ft under uppers, 3000 lumen)

Above the sink, I wanted a pendant but with two lights to minimize shadows, and so will have a two-light track/spotlight pointing down, about 2 x 500 lumens (1000 lumens)

For each recessed can, most GU10 LEDs I have seen cap out at about 500 lumens per bulb. (6 x 500 lumens, 3000 lumens)

The linear LED pendant above the peninsula is 600 lumens

These are all great tips and I have no doubt they lead to better lighting. However, for the average person, I would say that they would never notice an issue of cans in the walkway leading to shadows over the counter. With enough cans, the shadow is minimal and is something I never noticed until reading on here and then checking my kitchen. It's great to optimize the plan, but not the end of the world if you miss this detail on lighting placement in my opinion.