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My kitchen isn't doing so great. But what's REALLY bad is the lights. And I don't know what to do about it.
The house has a cathedral ceiling, and peaks off-center of the room. Most of the ceiling is sliding down towards the wall with the fridge and stove. There's a square of track lighting that goes around the room - line-voltage with hideous fixtures. There's also a bit of track high over the sink with two more of those line-voltage fixtures pointing downward. The track is aging, and it's not white anymore, especially the ends that cover some electrical bits, I think. Those plastic ends are very, very yellow-beige now.
There's also a peninsula, and an ugly pendant hangs from the track over the peninsula.
I need light. I hate the fixtures so much I just don't ever replace the bulbs when they burn out. In the last year all but about 4 have gone out and now I'm in trouble. It looks like the easiest thing to do is to just replace the ugly fixtures with more attractive ones, but those will still be $40 a pop and while better than what I have, they're still not great. I could spend still MORE money and get tiny ones that would looks nicer, but they'd need a transformer apiece, and for that much money I'm not going to live with the yellowish track. I understand that I can replace the pendant easily, which is good, but I need a better solution for this room and I am STUCK.
The cabinets will be replaced but not for several years. Countertops too. Yeah, they're blue with wood trim. What can I say? It cleans up well enough for the timebeing. But the lights... the lights... the lighting must be fixed.
Yes, I snapped these with my cell phone mid-cook. I just couldn't take it anymore. Suggestions, please?!
All things considered, I'd probably go with a monorail system.
Kind of like a track system, but suspended closer to working height, and much more modern looking.
Although they are often seen in a snaking or curved installation, they don't have to be. Personally I don't like the snakey look. It usually has no relation to the furnishing or function of the room. I prefer the straight line installations.
There are all kinds of heads that you can buy to hang from the monorail. Blown murano glass shades or stainless steel cylinders or antiqued bronze systems. Whatever suits your style. You don't have to do the same throughout your kitchen, you can use one type for general light and decorative pendants hanging from the monorail over the peninsula. The fixtures typically use MR16 lamps which provide brighter light that is great color rendering for food areas, and produce more light with less heat. Always a plus in a kitchen. And you can start out small with a short length of monorail and extend the system later on, if that's the way your budget works.
There are many manufacturers of monorail systems, and many price ranges, but here is a good quality manufacturer's website, with installation photos: Tech Lighting (http://www.techlighting.com/default.asp?page=products&subpage=application&appt ype=R&sa=va&systype=MO&sysid=1&nme= - broken link). They don't sell to the public, you'll either need to find a supplier or go with another manufacturer, I'm just providing the link to give you an idea of what is possible with a system like this. Note their photo gallery even has some kitchens shown with cathedral and coffered ceilings.
Eeeeks, yes those white cabinets are outdated but not as outdated as track lighting. Take all those track lights out and bury them in the 1970s cemetary next to the 1980s white cabinet cemetary.
Lighting. Lighting in a room, especially a kitchen can make it bright and cheery or dark and romantic or dark and dingy. Lighting can highlight your favorite nic-nacks or your favorite treasure....your special piece. It can also help you hide structural flaws that you want someones eys to shy away from.....such as ugly out of style white cabinets. Just as you are hoping for, yes some simple lighting change can change the whole look and feel of your kitchen.
You can also skip special lighting and with your cathedral ceilings can put in a nice sky light to bring in natural light. This is a more expensive way to create light but the results are dramatic. Your pics do not show much but if you have an island or peninsula you can hang pendant lights which focus on that specific area. Color can be added to these lights for dramatic effect. Recessed lighting or can lights or high hats still are popular with no signs of people getting sick of them. They give off a whole lot of light and can be directed to a specific area or areas.
I can go on but for the purpose of space I will only cover types of the light in these light fixtures. I beg of you to stay away from fluoresent which is a dull borning yellow light and will never ever create an atmosphere you want to create. Halogen is a bright brilliant clear white but burn more energy and the bulbs do not last very long. The old fashioned incandesant bulb that Thomas Edison invented is still the best.
If the rafters are deep enough I'd install cans.
A kitchen is no place for dust bunny farms and cob webs. Track lighting is an amusement park for those little spiders. And when the fixtures start to show the dust they're a pain to clean (especially in your case with the high ceiling)- generally it's not just dust but, grease and other grim from cooking and such.
Can lights all but eliminate that problem(s). Halogen flood bulbs will be the best lighting source for your scenario (if it is the primary source). But, you could enhance the lighting with some under cabinet xenon fixtures if your budget allows.
Any type of hanging fixture in a kitchen area just means more too clean/keep clean.
I get rid of those track lights that make it look like a office and go recessed lighting. Also maybe some under counter lights and hidden light above those cabinets for when you want less light than for prep and cooking. Lose those bottles that make it look like a Bar room. The although I am not a white cabinet liker;I'd keep them and go for some color on the walls. Its very sterile and cold looking now. good luck.
Haha desertsun, I excluded the counters as much as possible because they are sorta cluttered at the moment. Most moments, really. And I already know how you feel about white, chinese, laminate cabinets. You'd sh*t if you actually laid eyes on the blue laminate countertop!
Texdav, the bottles are there because (a) there's a nice evening attached to all of them and that makes me smile, and (b) it looked so EMPTY in there without something over the cupboards. One day I took a stash of bottles and stood them up there rather than put them in the recycle bin, and I just kept doing it. Until the cupboards get replaced (years out), there's no molding or anything going in. I'm honestly pretty stumped about what to do to make it less bar-like without adding too much clutter. I'm not a fan of overflowing baskets of stuff. I think spreading the wine bottles around with something in between them would be better, but I dunno what. Right now, the lights are what's killing me; the rest will come in time.
Recessed lights would be good -- I have no idea if they'll fit. I guess the only way to find out might be to actually poke a hole in the ceiling and see how much space there is between there and the roof? Is there a good method to determine how many recessed lights should go in a space? I don't want to under- or over-shoot it. But I think you guys are on to something. I hadn't considered recessed lights because of the lack of attic space there, but I guess they had to wire up that track lighting somehow, meaning the power is already up there. There must be SOME space.
We've played with the idea of a skylight. We might do just that. The room gets lots of light already during the day because there's a big, high-up cutout in the tall wall between the kitchen and dining room; the kitchen faces south. It's evening and nighttime, which this time of year starts around 4pm, that you're hurting for light in there.
Monorail is an option, but I checked the pricing and ouchie it's very expensive. I have a tiny monorail in a downstairs room (just four lights) and I like it, but I don't know that I'd want to hang a whole system in there. I will definitely look at one for over the peninsula, though, and maybe hang 2 or 3 lights from it. I could have something pretty.
Thanks for the suggestions so far and if there are any more, ears wide open! Thanks!
Nothing really wrong with track lights--sure they need some maintenance.
Other than the replacement bulbs, I would make all of them focus straight down instead of focusing on the walls.
Also, I would use those new CFC lights, that way you can use them when you do upgrade to recessed light cans. But that might look odd on a slanting ceiling.
Recessed downlights would be my second choice. But there are several disadvantages and that is why I didn't suggest it.
Obviously changing the lightbulbs is going to be a hassle with that ceiling. And architecturally you will likely encounter problems laying out a lighting plan--beams, and other obstructions above the drywall ceiling.
On top of that, the cathedral ceiling means getting uniform light distribution will be a problem. Some lights will be further away from the worksurface than others. You can try to decrease the spacing between fixtures where the ceiling is higher, but such an approach won't be an exact science. Even with the best efforts, you'll likely end up with bright and dark spots.
Monorail avoids these problems. Most monorail fixtures were nothing more than a clamp around a tiny bulb, with hardly any surface for dust to settle on.
As for cost, total costs of a monorail installation vs. alternatives isn't as significant as might be supposed by looking at per part costs. MR16/MR11s put out as much as 2x as much light as an incandescent bulb, so you need half as many fixtures as you would with recessed can lights. Installation costs are obviously significantly less because you would only need to wire a single junction box for the monorail, and that alone powers all of the fixtures, whereas recessed lights will require cutting into the gyp bd at each location and wiring back to the switch. On top of that, monorail systems produce less heat, so you'll need to cool your kitchen less. By comparison, 90% of energy consumed by incandescent bulbs are waste heat. Only 10% is visible light. MR16/MR11 bulbs last 20x longer without light output diminishing over time as happens with incandescent bulbs. Even if you were to assume the recessed cans were supplied with compact fluorescent bulbs, MR16s still hold great advantage.
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It cleans up well enough for the timebeing. But the lights... the lights... the lighting must be fixed.
You'd sh*t if you actually laid eyes on the blue laminate countertop!
