Lighting is so important

We went to Home Depot today to pick out recess lighting for the new kitchen ceiling. 

I don't know if you've ever been down the lighting aisle at Home Depot, but it's a very scary place.... 

So many!!!!!!!!

Since there are SO many options when it comes to lighting, we simplified it to English by putting the lights into 3 categories. Basically, recessed lighting is separated by color, type of bulb, and the way the light projects outward. 

Color: 

There is a color spectrum that the light emits from the bulb, but in general, lighting color can be warm white, bright white, or daylight. 

Neither of us like the super bright fluorescent colored light because it seems too sterile. This type of lighting is labeled as "daylight," but I call it hospital light. So daylight is ruled out. 

Additionally, we don't like the dull, yellow lighting that seems to make everything look dirty. This light is the lower end of the "warm white" spectrum, so we want to avoid that.

Type of "bulbs":

So for us, there's LED lights and then there's everything else. There are a million types of bulbs out there (ie: halogen, BR, PAR, CFL, etc.) but none of them compare to LED. LED lights are more energy efficient, nontoxic, durable, and long lasting than other lighting options. Also, they are smaller and the fixtures are a more compact design, which will help Brad and my dad when they are installing them! 

Outward Projection:

What I mean by this is how much light is omitted and in what direction the light rays are projecting outward. There are 5 styles which include lensed, baffle, reflector, open, and eyeball. Basically, the eyeball moves; the baffle and lensed produce a concentrated, straight beam of light downwards; and the reflector and open lighting both produce a wide, soft beam. Because we want general room lighting, we are looking for more of a wide, soft look to distribute the light throughout the entire room. For this reason, we narrowed our search to a reflector or open style of light; the other types would be more for accent and wall lighting.

 

This ^^ is the light we went with because it fit all of our expectations AND it was inexpensive. Some of the other fixtures were $40+ whereas this one was only $22.88!! A steal! Also, ratings online proved the product even more because most people raved about how great this specific light is.

We got 4 of them because we want to put 2 on each side of the kitchen. Since we are also putting in rope lighting above our cabinets, we felt 4 would be more than enough to brighten the entire kitchen! 

 

Seems like they're popular too! This ^^ was on the end of the aisle - tons of the same one we picked! 

Brads parents got us a $250 gift card to Home Depot and $250 to Target, so we used that money to buy these lights, a light for the bathroom, and also other things to complete the kitchen ceiling!!! 

Thank you Tom and Jeri!!!! :)