One of my design hang-ups is sunken ceiling spots. Personally, I would never fit them, although I can understand having them in a kitchen or bathroom. But this is just… something. No options for anything but searing white light. I can’t even see any lamps in the bedroom.
They’re bad, but what about the ice rink floor tiles and sharp cornered worktops and furniture. One rainy day and you’re practically in a Final Destination set up!
Oof. I didn’t even think about that.
I feel like I’ve been explaining this problem to the people around me for 400 years.
So . . tired.
Even with dimming, I think you’d have to disconnect half those lights. Can we discuss the terrible kitchen though? The stovetop looks to be poorly lit (ironically), almost all the usable counter space is the island, the fridge is way to far away, the grey cabinets and black countertops really clash with the white floor. They spent a ton of money on that stone and it looks awful.
Yup. I hate this trend of having a big kitchen with hardly any counter space. It seems to be something people aspire to here.
I use Hue tuneable or RGB bulbs recessed in the ceiling and they’re great. With their switches and a little setup it will turn on the lights to the appropriate brightness and color temperature depending on the time of day. They dim to nearly nothing up to daylight. You just need good bulbs or drivers.
And 5000k lights too. I fucking hate “daylight” lights like that in the house. 2700k gang here.
Yep! All the ones I can change the temperature of are 2700k. If I need cooler task lighting, it’s a lamp or under the counter, but not on all the time.
THERE ARE FOUR HUNDRED LIGHTS!
You don’t have dimmable lights in the UK?
Personally, I think they’re among the best options. Table lamps are fine, but take up table space and then you still have to deal with cords all over your floor, taking up outlets.
Ceiling fixtures are a style commitment, and stupidly expensive to replace.
Sunken lights with dimmable lights are just about perfect for a clean look and controllable ambiance. If you put in RGB smart bulbs, even better, but that’s a major investment on this scale and adds significantly to figuring out good controls. The best compromise I’ve seen are dimmable bulbs with a second control that’s simply cool <-> warm; the wall switch is then just like a normal dimmable, but with 2 sliders: one for brightness, the other for warmth. You can simulate a decent sunset lighting by maxing the warmth and lowering the brightness.
I don’t find ceiling fixtures expensive (depending on the style of course. Most house her have a central pendant and many people just have a shade. I think having a bunch of holes in the ceiling and lots of bulbs to change if you keep them is more of a commitment.
I would say dimmable wall switches are not super common, but it’s getting easier to get bulbs that can be controlled independent of the wall switch, although these are still a lot more expensive, so you see lots of these lights that only have one setting.
So, in the US, switching to dimmable lights is literally just changing the switch and making sure you have dimmable bulbs in the sockets. With LED lights, it’s a little worse because different brands have different resistances and if all of the LED lights on a circuit aren’t the same brand & model, they tend to flicker.
In that house, even as cheap as LED lights have become, changing all those out for dimmables (assuming they aren’t already) would be expensive. There must be close to 100 in-ceiling lights in there; dimmable LEDs are around $4 here, so that’s a budget of $500 just for the bulbs. The switches can be inexpensive, but say if you’re going to do it, might as well get nice ones - that’s $30 per switch, although you want only one dimmer per circuit, so you’re looking at maybe 6? Another couple hundred, so maybe a napkin budget of $700. Maybe more if you need to replace other switches to match style and color, but toggle switches are dirt cheap.
Replacing the switches is easy; it’d take longer to swap out all of the ceiling bulbs.
Jesus, that’s a lot of bulbs.
Need new corneas and retinas after just looking at the pictures.
Bought my place from a family of Hindu fixer-uppers. The house ticked almost all the boxes for us, so totally no regrets (after spending a lot on redoing things,but that is another matter).
There still is one quirk left that I cannot explain though. The guys built an extension, adding roughly 15sqm to the living room. That was actually one of the major selling points for us as we did not want to do such a big project on our own from day one.
BUT. They somehow thought that would be a grand idea to put 14 ceiling lights there. Almost 1 per sqm. My eyes bleed if all are on! Luckily, they split it into 2 groups, so I can use only 6 - and that is bright enough.
My husband draws plans for people and I’m often catching a look at the screen and asking if the client is sure they want that many lights!
Only thing I won was a headache.
I don’t know, I quite like it.
I’d give some of those rooms a warmer paint job and lighting, but that’s a nice property.
Oh god. One electrical fail and you spend whole day changing lights xD
Dear gods. I do have these in my kitchen diner and bathrooms, that’s more than enough tbh
Our plasterer asked about having some above our table, but I ended up with a pendant with a long cord as I move the table (and light) depending on visitors, time of year, or just a whim.
