Renovating victorian terraced cottage, do I want downlighters?

[MinimalistMommi]

Can decided wether to stick with pendent lighting or have downlighters. Having complete renovation of cottage. The whole place is being gutted. New staircase is going in shortly. We will have original floorboards, wood burner, white walls etc but still want to keep it looking quite modern. Need to make a decision about lighting everywhere in the cottage and I'm struggling.
Help me please! Need opinions.

It sounds like it's going to be spectacular and sooooo pretty!

When I moved into my house, there were downlighters everywhere. There were about 6 on the upstairs landing, about 6 in the hall downstairs, and another 8 going all up the stairs. My house is a small two-bedroom-and-a-boxroom semi. So the overall effect was like a cross between a very dubious looking liner and the Blackpool illuminations and cost me a fortune to run.

I really like downlighters in the kitchen and bathroom. They are bright and they have a nice twinkle to them. I have kept these but I am going to replace the current halogen bulbs with LEDs as they go to be more eco-friendly.

However, I have removed the downlighters from the hall, which does not need to be lighted like an operating theatre, and have reinstalled pendant lights. It looks prettier and I have noticed an immediate reduction in my energy bill!

I suppose I am saying: you could go for a mix?

no.

When the fashion for making holes in your ceilings passes, it will be as ridiculous as stone-cladding and artex. They let noise and smoke pass through.

They aren't even efficient for light.

No. The number of places we've looked at which have (in our opinion) been ruined by dozens of downlighters everywhere. We just see it as another job to remove them...

Downlighters have their place, but when we rented a thatched cottage with downlighters everywhere if felt a bit wrong somehow. A modern look can be achieved with our ripping the soul out of a property.

Compromise maybe and kitchen and bathrooms ?

No to downlighters from me too. You spend your whole time buying new bulbs and changing them is not easy. Also the transformers regularly blow. Also the heat from the transformers can be a fire hazard in ceiling spaces in old buildings. Also they are about to go out of fashion.

Also not sure about pendant lighting though. How about strategic lamps (standard and table) operated by switches at the door?

Downlighters have their place. They work if you have a lack of ceiling height or to compliment a feature pendant light.
They can be bland if they are your only sort lighting.
I would always do a mixture of side/wall lights or pendants with them.
You can use LED replacement bulbs in GU10 fittings and you avoid the problems of overheating, high energy use and transformers.

oooh, wonkylegs those LED replacement bulbs sound good. Do they give a nice light? Do you have to get rid of the transformers first?

You can get ones that work with transformers but you may need an adapter in the circuit. I'd have a look at some LED websites and they will have advice.
I only recommended the GU10 ones as this is what I would use if starting from scratch.
They can look good but you must choose the right colour bulbs - I'd recommend warm White as the cool ones are a bit stark in houses. Some makes are better than others - the very cheap ones don't seem to be as good and can give out a less good light (although this doesn't seem to bother everybody), we started off buying one from various makes to decide which looked best then just replacing with ones we liked.

I'm going to show DH these answers! Thank you everyone that has got back to me so far you are all definitely helping me make my decision!

struggling I'm hoping it's going to be pretty in the end. I'm trying to go for a modern cottage look really (not fussy and frilly but cosy with rugs on the wooden floors etc etc) just struggling with making decisions really. Need to choose internal doors and I'm not sure about those either...

We installed downlighters in most of the downstairs of our current house and, tbh, I regret it. I don't like the light you get from them and the bulbs and transformers are always needing to be replaced.
We have them in our bathrooms and I like them there.

Thank you cavell that's useful to know

We don't have much of a choice, as we have very low ceilings, so have fitted downlightrrs throughout the upstairs.

I think they're absolutely fine to solve a problem, but I certainly gaze with envy at people who can have pendants.

LED downlighters cost a fortune, too.

Grendels that's really interesting! Thank you for replying. I see downlighters so much on Grand Designs etc that I thought loads of people used them and loved them too! This thread is teaching me that isn't the case. Now I thinking that I will have pendents in bedrooms/reception rooms and LED downlighters in our teeny tiny kitchen possibly, I need to have a chat with DH.

Oh, they're great in the kitchen and in the bathroom. I quite like them in the dressing room as well. It's just that you get this rather weird flat light, like being in an art gallery where all the light around the room is even and all the walls are very bright. I suspect that's what people in a lot of the Grand Designs houses like.

I really don't like them even in the kitchen, if it's an open plan kitchen. I just don't like how they look at all.

TV shows and Gloria Soames magazines have to fill space with weird ideas.

Remember Decking, and blue fences?

I've got them in the kitchen and bathroom. I really like them. Not planning on getting rid any time soon.

We have them in kitchen, bathrooms and attic rooms, where ceiling heights are low. We also have them in the hall and on landing, where I think they look good, but most people on MN appear to disagree.
If you are happy with existing lighting, stick with it. We had cheap wall lights in our hall, which I was happy to replace.
I would recommend dimmers if you go for down lighters; they can look quite stark.

Noooo, we put them in our last house (Victorian terrace), looked fine but used to blow all the bloody time, sometimes it was like cooking by candlelight when a load went in the kitchen in short succession and we didn't have replacements. Plus they always tripped the circuit when they blew, which entailed a visit to the cellar (in the dark). I think under cabinet lighting is the way to go in the kitchen if you need to spotlight areas, and ditto mirror lighting in the bathroom. The rest of the house can easily be lit by pendants and lamps.

No, don't like them at all.

Yes, if your ceilings are fairly low with no details, and you plan to have eg table lamps. but put them on a dimmer. Pendant lights never light a room well, good ones are expensive and need cleaning. Don't buy cheap ones, those are the ones that look awful and give bad light.

Well it looks like we will be going with pendents everywhere as yesterday realised we may well be using a lime plaster in the cottage and I think the downlighters would look hideously wrong with this. The kitchen is in the 'modern' add on at back which has regular gypsum plaster so eventually we might have downlighters in there.

I wanted to thank everyone for their advice!