Trust me it's a very large area, its not over the dining area or sofa area directly .. we have other lamps, led strip lights and feature lighting etc too. The plan was drawn up by a lighting expert at grand designs, so we actually took out quite a few that were originally in our plan. It's probably not 30 in just that one room - that's in total for utility and garage etc too. I'm not a huge fan either, but I also don't have the money to pay out for specific lighting everywhere, so we've compromised a bit so we have a bit of both - mood lighting, plus spots. There are enough lights to not have the spots on and create an atmosphere. There are no windows at the back, so it will fill in the light we need, and also we've had the first fix done, so are committed now.

:)

I think a combination of spots and other lights can work well.

I would go for GU10s with adjustable fittings. Make sure you get dimmable bulbs.

Hi there JC, sounds like you've got a lot to think about!

For starters I'd recommend a quick read of our blog post 'LED Lighting - What You Need to Know' which should hopefully answer most of your questions.

If you do need any further advice when you're done, please just let us know.

All the best

Rich, Darklight Design

Go for a 3000k GU10. Would give you the balance between being not too yellow and not a clinical white light. Works well functionally as well for everyday living, reading, cooking etc. Definitely go dimmable. Good luck with it.

JC We have around 26 GU10 down lights in our open plan kitchen diner.

We have just swapped the kitchen area over to LEDs in new white coloured down lights which look a little less obtrusive. We went for 3000k (warm white - but not too yellow) 6w LED bulbs in those.

We got both the down lights and bulbs from https://ledlam.co.uk/. We chose their bulbs because along with being a good price, the cover on the face is just milky white and when the light is off you can't perceive any of the yellow light cells inside, which we found in some of those from Amazon. They do three colours of light, warm white, day white and cool white, so perhaps the day white would suit you better

The dining area we're keeping as halogen GU10s on a dimmer because we prefer the warmer, softer colour of the halogens. We also have a pair of table lamps on the sideboard and 2 wall lights in that bit.

We have a wall light in the kitchen - along with dimmable in-cupboard lighting in the glass fronted wall cabinets and dimmable under cupboard lighting.

So, we can have as much or as little light as the occasion requires, but it is most important to have the option of good task lighting in the kitchen I think.

Has anyone heard of these below as one option? Any good? Apparently around £14, so similar cost to non integrated. ip rated ..integrated lamp..no separate driver required colour changeable via wall switch..600 lumens (bright)..changeable bezel..shallow depth..dimmable..shallow rim...due to ip rating can be used inside living area plus bathrooms and outside? so 1 fitting all matching! Problem is I've done the first fix, so not sure what it means changeable via wall switch and if too late to add that now as plastering tomorrow..

JC You can clearly see the difference between the two sets of lights, the lights in the kitchen are a clean white light - good for working and the others are a more warm yellow light more conducive for eating at the dining table.

The intention is when we have people for dinner, the kitchen will only be illuminated by the in-cupboard lights and under-cupboard lights. To avoid having the very bright overhead lights.

That said we usually just have the the lamps on the sideboard on, in the dining room, because you have to walk through the dining room to the kitchen from the rest of the house - it's only a kitchen & dining room, no sofas, tv etc (we've got two other sitting rooms as it is!).

The truth is that we only switched to the LED in the kitchen part because there were so many lights https://ledlam.co.uk/shop/ledlam-gu10-downlight-cast-aluminium-tilt-twist-lock-white, otherwise, we'd have just stuck with the halogens. (We swapped the kitchen and the dining room over and we only had 7 halogens in the original kitchen).