Opinions on kitchen downlight positions

[SolRobinson]

Hello, just looking for some opinions on these downlight positions... I've spent days playing around with these positions...

The 2 rows of 3, they are 700 centres from the walls and then 900 centres from each other, except the middle one is 805~ centres from the 2 rows.

I've spent countless hours googling to find that most people agree 500-700 from the wall but then most people say 1200-1600 from each other and also to avoid them being over tall units. As you can see the bottom right on is more or less over the tall unit and is roughly 100mm from centre of the downlight to the edge of the tall unit. Does anyone see any problems with this? I'm also unsure as to whether the distance from the wall is too much? I've seen people say you want the downlight over the worktops or over you, but not behind you, these are fairly over you when standing at the units.

I opted for a single downlight in the centre as we will be having task lighting under the wall units and the middle half height unit is an extractor with a light, so didn't feel like downlight was necessary... but does the single centre one look odd?

Any advice would be much appreciated

 

[sparkwright]

Looks all right.

Don't forget, the task lighting and the extractor lighting lighting never get used after the first two weeks anyway.

Considering leaving a continuous, uncut loop of cable in the ceiling in the two places you aren't putting spots - then you add them in the future if you change your mind.

 

[morqthana]

View attachment 355894

No noggins?

 

[SolRobinson]

No noggins?

It's original 1960's property... don't think they believed in noggings seems they didn't believe in 400/16" or 600/24" spacings either as none of these joists have the same spacing... The bathroom sits above the kitchen and we plan to renovate that next year and I'll be plying the joists to strengthen as whoever replaced the bathroom before we bought the property really did a number on drilling through them

 

[Taylortwocities]

@SolRobinson Congratulations on your planning.

You are one of the few people that have considered the positioning of ceiling joists, etc before just getting the 70mm holesaw out, making a swiss cheese of the ceiling and finding all sorts of suprises!

 

[SolRobinson]

@SolRobinson Congratulations on your planning.

You are one of the few people that have considered the positioning of ceiling joists, etc before just getting the 70mm holesaw out, making a swiss cheese of the ceiling and finding all sorts of suprises!

Fail to prepare...prepare to fail

 

[ericmark]

Old quartz halogen down lights had an angle published so you could work out where the 60º or 45º spread would light, they were called MR16 the MR stands for multifaceted reflector, modern LED units don't have a reflector so there is no sharp cut off point where they don't light.

My own kitchen has a unit like this so I can aim the lights where I want, it is not what I want, in the house when I bought it, and I have no access to ceiling space, so I am considering lighting track

so I can extend from existing lamps on the surface without it looking like an after thought, which of course it is. But it allows me to aim light where needed, and change how it is done at will.

But wall cupboards do allow one to fit lights under them, and

Don't forget, the task lighting and the extractor lighting lighting never get used after the first two weeks anyway.

is very true, mainly as it means switching them on/off independently. I have two under counter lamps with a cooker hood between them, actually the hood lights are used, but counter lights to left are smart and used, but to right has a switch local to lights and rarely used.

The big advantage of smart lights is one command turns off all, living room around 6 lamps which are used as 'hey google turn on/off living room lights' does them all, we don't really need a smart light switch for main light, but using voice commands helps, specially when hand covered in flour in kitchen.

The other this is when I ignore my wife, I can say I thought you were talking to google!

Your lay out seems good, but now is the time to consider any smart controls to integrate lighting, even if done latter.