An idea I've been playing with but have not seen put to practice...

I hate the idea of can lights, (on top of AT and IC fixtures and air penetration debate) I just think they are an eyesore dotted across a large ceiling!

My idea is to have a trayed ceiling, and mini-strip T5 fixtures installed on the wall hidden entirely from view. (IE: http://www.alkco.com/index.php?page=products&id=370)

Just wondering if anyone has done something similar and wondering if they could upload a picture so I can see what it looks like.

I realize that under the tray would be shadowed and need to have recessed lighting, or floor standing lights or something of the sort. Perhaps a tray (not sure what else to call it) not on the wall, but the same perimeter, away from the wall if light levels are too dim in the center of a large room. This way you could have the lights more "centered" in the room and giving light towards the oustide walls and center of room more evenly, but the tray shadow would still need to be addressed.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can show a picture, or who has simply seen it and can offer input on the aesthetics and lighting levels!

I have seen several homes with tray ceilings that contained 4' long hidden fluorescent tubes.  Trim is used in the tray to hide the tubes.  This system really lights up a room.

In the near future, maybe LED lights on a string can be used instead of the fluorescent lamps.

I also find can lights an eyesore. What we did in the kitchen is to use 4 sets of island lights, one set over the sink and the other 3 in a straight line along the long dimension of the kitchen. There are a couple of pictures of the light at this link that don't quite show what we did but might give you an idea. We do have a cathedral ceiling and that worked well with the kind of fixtures we used, but the same idea could be used with an 8 ft ceiling and fixtures configured differently.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.394434177917.171985.665372917&type=1&l=35a6857cce

Alton, I was considering the LED lights until I called a few electrical suppliers (I'm in the trade) and at cost it they were literally 1200-1400 bucks for ONE 4' fixture (similiar to the T5 mini-strips)... Apparently there just isn't enough demand for the suppliers to carry them commonly yet. I found the price outrageous at MY cost, I can't imagine anyone using them paying cost+mark up+labor, holy smokes! Not sure if by string you meant a rope lighting, or products like Lucifer Lighting offers (Not UL listed IIRC), either way, I would really be interested in LED styled lights, but upfront costs really make me question it at this point in time.

Ros, I really like those lights and they would be great for task lighting at the sink/above an island. Do you happen to remember the brand or model by chance?

Thanks again!

We got them at Home Depot, Hampton Bay 3 lt Disc Island 07535 -
http://www.homedepot.com/buy/lighting-fans/ceiling-lighting/3-light-disc-island-light-36626.html

I used standard base twist cfl's in them - just needed the readily available shorter bulbs.

If you search for Island lights online there are gazillions of them in every style and configuration you can think of.

Posted By Wise Goat on 11 Dec 2011 03:22 AM
An idea I've been playing with but have not seen put to practice...

I hate the idea of can lights, (on top of AT and IC fixtures and air penetration debate) I just think they are an eyesore dotted across a large ceiling!

My idea is to have a trayed ceiling, and mini-strip T5 fixtures installed on the wall hidden entirely from view. (IE: http://www.alkco.com/index.php?page=products&id=370)

Just wondering if anyone has done something similar and wondering if they could upload a picture so I can see what it looks like.

I realize that under the tray would be shadowed and need to have recessed lighting, or floor standing lights or something of the sort. Perhaps a tray (not sure what else to call it) not on the wall, but the same perimeter, away from the wall if light levels are too dim in the center of a large room. This way you could have the lights more "centered" in the room and giving light towards the oustide walls and center of room more evenly, but the tray shadow would still need to be addressed.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can show a picture, or who has simply seen it and can offer input on the aesthetics and lighting levels!

Most of the ambient lighting in my house is from cabinet-top & cove-mounted  dimmable T8s directed at ceilings (painted with high reflectivity ceiling paint), mounted ~18" below the ceiling in the flat-ceiling rooms, 6' below in rooms with cathedralized ceilings. The wall above the coves/cabinet tops also becomes part of the diffusing surface.

I've also seen pretty good "wall wash" valences mounted mid-wall that use the wall as the diffusing surface, directed both upward and downward.

Even though using them this way reduces efficiency due to "fixture losses" (the amount of light absorbed by the paint), without direct view of the bulbs makes it glare-free, and visual efficacy is better, even at lower absolute light levels.

If you google-images "cove lighting" or "lighting valence" you'll  find many photos, but photography misses much of the effect. I looks better to the human eye than can be captured with CCD or film, due to the more logarithmic response of the eye.

Dimmable ballasts and special dimmers are somewhat pricey, but well worth it in rooms where you may want to vary the ambient light level over a wide range. In my 14' x 13'dining room I have three 4-footers (96 watts) in a cove along one wall, and I only crank 'em to 100% for cleaning- for dining they're running 20-30%.  Mine are dimmable only to ~ 2% of total power (~2 watts, in that room), but that's more than enough light for avoiding the furniture on a walk-through. 

In my 12' x 22' family room I have five four footers in a cove 8' from the floor, 6' below the peak of the ceiling on 2 switches, one controlling the ends & middle the other controling the other two. It's OK as is, but I'm going to swap in dimmable ballasts to get finer granularity (and lower light levels for "movie night".)

I chose T8s due to broader choices of color temp & color rendering than was available in T5s at the time (and probably still.)  In the kitchen & dining areas I stuck with 3000-Kelvin for better looking food, but in the family room I did a mix, 3000K (warm white) at the ends, 4100K (cool white) in the center with 3500K tubes between the 4100K & 3000Ks. The mix gives it an airier feel without losing "warmth".  With just the 3500Ks on it's a bit more subdued, but not bad.  All 4100K would give it that "at the office" feel, but all 3000K is a bit eye-fatiguing for reading print. Color temps of 5000K and up are great for aquariums, but tend to be too blue for general ambient lighting and makes human skin look a bit washed out (for any ethnicity or pigmentation level). At any color temp it's worth spending a bit more to get a color rendering index (CRI) of 80 or greater, but not necessarily worth it for 90+.

(Sorry, no pics.)

I am bumping this back up as I am in this planning stage right now. my new build plan has an L shape kitchen with a large island. it is open to the living room and the dining room is off to the side in its own room, however with a 8' wide opening. the thought is to have a tray in the living room and the dining room. THe living room will have 9' plates with the cove at 10'. Dining room is 10' plates with the cove at 11'. Kitchen is 9' plates. For the kitchen, on the L shape, I have uppers along the long leg of the L. The shorter leg is the sink wall and has only base with all windows. My thought was to use LED undercabinet lighting and then T5 or T8 strips above the cabinets to provide my lighting. Over the island I would have 3 or 4 pendants. (8' long). Over the sink wall I would have 2-3 of the same pendants. No cans. Any thoughts on this option? For the living room and dining, the plan is to have the cove lighting provide everything for the living room. The dining room will have a pendants in the center, so cove would be ambient. A ceiling fan without a light would be in the living room. We like our living rooms dimmer, so if the coves do not provide enough, that should be fine. We can also use a couple lamp if needed. Any thoughts or product types I should be looking into? I was going to do 1 or 2 strips of LED under cabinet lighting depending on how bright they are. I want a continuous strip and not spots for even light. Any thoughts would be great.

I want a continuous strip and not spots for even light.

When the LED emitters are close enough together, you get that continuous strip effect. The products in which the LEDs are mounted on a very thin strip, much like a flexible circuit board, might be what you are looking for. The strips can be housed in long aluminum extrusions or MDF moldings with different profiles. If you stand them off a flat surface, even if it is only 6" away, you get that bright continuous bar effect.

This is the website:

http://www.superbrightleds.com/

You are looking for the section containing "Flexible light bars and strips"

I hope you can continue to resist the cans. It's still hard to beat T5 or T8 strips above and under cabinets for kitchen lighting.

those LED strips were exactly what I was looking at at Menards. What I am not sure of is if I need 1 row or 2 rows under the cabinets.
Do you think finding dimming ballast for T8/T5 is worth it above the cabinets? I am not sure why it would be. The other easier option is to get a 2 bulb T5 and wire each bulb on/off on 2 switches.

What I am not sure of is if I need 1 row or 2 rows under the cabinets.

1 row is fine if you get them bright enough. Two rows and you can lose the linear effect. I don't know what Menards carries in terms of the brightness range and configurations actually available.

Dimming ballasts are nice, but often pricy, as are the special dimmers required. (They can be had for cheap on internet auction sites if you're willing to wait though, which was my solution.)

Using separately switched tubes to get two "on" levels requires fixtures that use a ballast per tube, and most 2-tube T5 fixtures have a single 2-tube ballast. Your options are really either dimming, or just on/off.

There are a few variations on dimming ballasts & dimmers too. There's an older 0-10VDC control standard out there that use a separate smaller gauge wire pair for 0-10V dimmers, as well as 3-wire dimmed-leg versions, proprietary 2-wire versions, as well as digital options. The 0-10VDC versions only dim down to ~10% of full power (which is fine), and a simple switch on the control pair would give it two (dramatically different) light levels. The 3-wire versions dim down to ~2% of full power, but only use special dimmers.

With shiny countertops like polished granite LED and halogen under-cabinet lights can inject a lot of glare reflecting off the work surface. T5s under diffusers are more shadow & glare free in those situations. For less-shiny counter surfaces LEDs are fine, but not usually as efficient in lumens per watt as better T5s.

So Dana are you recommending going with T5 for under cabinet as well and forgo the LED lighting? The planned counters are white quartzite.

T5s work great under cabinets, and even with fixture-losses are pretty decent in delivered-lumens/watt. Fluorescent technologies minimize shadows and glare, which can be artifacts of LEDs. (A bunch of discrete point-sources of light in such a strips of LEDs gives multiple sharp edged shadows, and high intensity bright-spots when reflected off a polished working surface.) The down side to T5s is that you will be replacing the tubes at some point, whereas LEDs last pretty much forever.

LEDs fixtures are not all the same though. It helps to see a real installation to just whether the shadow & glare artifacts are likely to be a problem or not, since those aspects aren't easily pulled from a spec.

Whatever you do for under cabinet fixtures, mounting them at the front edge of the cabinet directed at the wall rather than at the wall directed at the room better places the light at the working area, and the reflected light off the wall fills in under any shadowing, increasing the overall efficacy.

Posted By Dana1 on 09 Jul 2012 03:08 PM
Dimming ballasts are nice, but often pricy, as are the special dimmers required. (They can be had for cheap on internet auction sites if you're willing to wait though, which was my solution.)
...

Dana, could you kindly offer some examples, and/or point to where to look for dimming ballasts?

Did you use dimming ballasts for T8 or T5?

Did you purchase T8 strip fixtures, then replace the ballasts with dimmable ballasts?

Many thanks!

Best regards,

Bill

We have tray ceilings with fluorescent tubes in our living room and these are wonderful.