For the love of god, will somebody please talk to me about recessed spotlights?

[moogdroog]

Ok - new house mid-renovation, I live over an hour away so can't get there to think it through. Builder has electrician coming tomorrow and needs a plan for the spotlights in had to sodding rebuild the entire thing extension kitchen diner.
How the hell do I work out how many I need?

Room is almost 6m by 4.6m. Two 1m sq skylights. Kitchen island with hob and extractor in the middle. Oak floor, grey gloss kitchen, light colour worktop. Two wall lights going in next to the dining table.

I think I want LEDs and not halogen. Straight lines? Randomness??
Will try to put pic on profile. Help!

Right. Instead of downlighters over the dining table, get them to put in a pendant lampholder for the moment instead, then you can have a focal point over the table. You can find the right fitting later.

Presumably the extractor hood has lights in it? That will light your hob.

Is your worktop glossy? Downlighters directly above glossy worktop will cause glare.

Can you get some undercabinet lights under the wall cabinets to light that worktop? And maybe some uplighting along the top of the same wall cabinets to reflect light off the ceiling?

It's tricky because without knowing the room I can't work out the total amount of light you need. But in principle use the downlighters where they're not directly over a glossy surface, i.e. so they're above flooring. And yes, LED's will be better than halogen (but specify warm white).

Over your island and above the sink run I can only suggest more pendants but you'll need to think about the style as too many pendants is going to look too much like John Lewis's lighting department.

That should keep the builders busy for a day whilst you take a breath!

And for downlighters, I prefer straight lines to randomness, but you have a difficult room there with those rooflights! Sorry, you don't want to hear that, do you?

Fresh! Thank you for talking to me about lights! Yep, it's a tricky room.

Unfortunately, been down the pendant over table road and have reached a dead end (I'd bought 2 of these lovelies as well). The skylights have messed with my plans and now I have a fear that I might forever fix my dining table in the wrong position by putting a pendant over it.

Fitting a couple of wall lights instead (bog standard, will look for better soon) by the dining table. Going to get some lights to go under the wall cabinet (only have one double wall cab) and a couple of over-lights on the two tall cabinets.

Hood has lights, so that's sorted. Worktop not glossy.

I'm thinking adjustable downlights? And do I want a dimmer?

Ok, well have you sent the pendants back? They could work over the sink run.

When you say adjustable, do you mean directional? Unless you're trying to wash the walls with light, there's no point in those I don't think. Yes, a dimmer would be good but check if you're having LED's that they can be dimmed, I'm not sure.

If I were you I'd have two downlighter circuits, one for the kitchen and one for the dining area. More flexible. If you go for pendants over the sink run, have those on the same circuit as the uplighters on top of the cabinets. Undercabinet lights also switched separately. And the dining table wall lights probably.

Electrician will hate me, but you want it as flexible as possible in a large space so you can zone it depending on what you're doing.

Am off to bed now but am waking up at stupid o clock in the morning at the mo so will check in tomorrow!

We have similar-ish sort of kitchen / diner extension and had LED downlights. Lots of them as vaulted ceiling. In straight lines including either side of the rooflights. Random would bug you after a short time, i'm sure.
As Fresh suggests, we have two circuits, one for the kitchen area and one for the dining area. Also separate circuit for lights under wall cupboards (essential IMO).
You need lights close enough to the edge of the room so when you are at the worktop you're not working in your own shadow. Even though under cupboard lights help I really appreciate the downlights near the edges of the room.
We didn't bother with a dimmer. Not into that.
Anyway, rather than you dictate how many lights you need, take the electrician's advice, ours worked out how many we would need for a good lighting level and we just had to confirm that was ok.