Kitchen lighting advice

[CorsicaDreaming]

We moved into our house earlier this year and are hoping to redo the kitchen next year.

Currently it has loads (14) of spotlights on the ceiling. I don't know whether I'm just over sensitive to them but they just seem really overly bright and jarring.

We have changed one set over to warm white and the others are still on the original cool white.
So we turn off cool white sometimes. And they are dimmable, but then tend to fluctuate and flicker sometimes.

Any ideas of any short-term fixes?
And if you were to redo it as we hope to do next year what would you do? Any other good ideas for lighting?

For now, can anyone recommend any brand/type of spotlight bulbs that they actually find work well (dimmable ideally) and have nice light?

Thanks for any advice.

Philips ExpertColor GU10s are good IMO. You can get them in 2700k which are very warm white. They are dimmable. They give a light similar to halogen.

If you have problems with dimming/flickering even with a dimmable bulb, it may be the dimmer switch module that is causing issues so you could try changing that. The Varilight V Pro module is pretty good.

@minipie - thanks very much!

Will look into both those bulbs and a new dimmer switch.

Does anyone else do anything completely different and prefer it to ceiling spotlights in their kitchen (for when we hopefully get round to sorting it all out some time next year) ?

We have wall lamps and some table lamps too (plus undercabinet lighting) and I think having different level lighting really helps make it not feel like a cold box.

Thanks yes I agree. My old kitchen was painted Dayroom yellow with a mango orange splash back (the builders always put their sunglasses on before coming in the kitchen) and we've moved to a house that is literally blue! Blue carpets, blue walls, cool white lights.... it will be a lovely house once I've made it more Mediterranean warm - but currently it does feel v cold white box....

Thanks for your advice 😊

Lots of people install cheap spotlights which aren’t truly dimmable, or have the wrong sort of dimmer switch for their lights. This will cause flickering op and/or humming.

The least intrusive option would be to get a reliable electrician to supply and install good quality spotlights and check you have a compatible dimmer switch.

I don't have any suggestions for your current lights but when you redo your kitchen, go for some good quality under-cabinet strip lighting. It's what we use most in our kitchen and I love how ambient it is - much more so than our dimmable downlights. Good quality will mean more light filaments (or whatever the y are) packed together, and no patchy/shadowy light which is why it's better than say, Ikea strip lighting. Cost us around £250 for 3m of lighting.

@CorsicaDreaming - we have 16 GU10 lights in our kitchen and I love them. When we moved in, there was a complete mix of random makes and types of bulb and it looked dreadful. I tried several makes of LED GU10 bulb and didn't like any of them. However we ended up using Hive smart bulbs (made by Aurora) and the light from those was perfect. We rarely use the 'smart' facility though. What I'm trying to say is keep trying different bulbs until you find ones you like - cheap bulbs never worked for us. We intend to fit worktop lighting next year in addition to the existing ceiling lights. Although we don't have dimmers in the kitchen, we do have them in a couple of other rooms and we had to change them for identical-looking modern dimmers that can control LED bulbs properly, the original dimmers just made our LED bulbs flicker and not dim. Good luck with your plans!

We are redoing kitchen. No spot lights. Hanging light over dining table, built in lights under high cabinets and floor lighting under lower cabinets. There’s lights inside cupboards as well

@minipie

Philips ExpertColor GU10s are good IMO. You can get them in 2700k which are very warm white. They are dimmable. They give a light similar to halogen.

If you have problems with dimming/flickering even with a dimmable bulb, it may be the dimmer switch module that is causing issues so you could try changing that. The Varilight V Pro module is pretty good.

I’ll second this combination as I have it in my bathroom, no flicker or harshness. Cheap dimmers or leds can certainly flicker or be very harsh or cold, not nice!