The kitchen is 12' x 19'6" and is open to the family room which is about 14'x 18'8". We have 2 recessed lights over the fireplace in the family room, as well as 3 various lamps and 2 windows. There is a bay window in the kitchen and patio doors, as well as a window over the sink, so during the day we get plenty (sometimes too much) light. At night it's a different story. It can be pretty dim sometimes. We only have 200 watts above the table right now, and the big old ugly flourescent light box (4) 40 watt tubes, in the center of the room, and a flush mount fixture over the sink (2) 40 watt bulbs. So over the table we would be gaining 160 watts with the new fixture, 20 watts with where the light box currently is (although I don't know how a flush mount with 180 watts compares to flourescent tubes that are 160 watts) and also gaining 20 watts over the sink. I don't think we are going to do under cabinet lighting, because our budget is really dwindling. Would UC lighting be very helpful? If so, I may reconsider. We just don't want to keep adding extras we won't recoup when we move in a couple of years. BTW, if anyone has an opinion on the brushed steel vs dark bronze (which looks almost black IRL), I'd love to hear it. (SS appliances with some black on them, ss sink, brushed nickel faucet, probably satin nickel cab hardware, and 2 interior doors with antique pewter levers). I could always look at some other fixtures. I've seen some that I didn't like quite as well, but could get 500 watts over the table and 300 watts in the center of the room. Would this be a better option? Sorry, I'm all over the place on this. I hate pressure to decide quickly!

50-ish, if you find one at 45 or so that you like don't discount it just because of the LRV number. Unless there are standards/color specs involved, LRV is more like a loosey-goosey guideline, not a formula or prescription to follow. And, yes, colors with a higher LRV number have better odds of delivering the light and airy atmosphere you're after vs. darker colors. A dramatically shifting paint color has more to do with its own metameric tendencies vs. the quality of light. A rule of thumb is if your color stays consistent in appearance when viewed in fluorescent and incandescent lighting, it will *probably* be consistent in any light source. More about north light: North exposure is not direct rays of sunlight. Very different from south light beaming into your kitchen almost all day long, or the morning sun bursting through your east facing bedroom windows at the break of day. North light isn’t necessarily reflecting or bouncing off of something else to get inside the space, it’s just that when your windows face north you don’t have actual, direct beams of light entering fenestration. North light is the most balanced from a spectral distribution perspective, it has a nice, even collection of all the wavelengths though it tends to be heavier in the blue range. Because it’s a balanced bundle of wavelengths and also because it is not a direct beaming, or spot-light effect of natural light, north facing rooms are ideal for any kind of artistic work environment. The pronounced blue of north light is a factoid that's been blown way out of proportion. Blogosphere has taken that one single aspect of north light and made a huge deal out of it - I guess because it makes a good 'sound bite' or something. I dunno. But it's kind of a dumb thing to hyper-focus on. Heavy in blue doesn't mean it's gray. Doesn't necessarily mean it's cool either. North light is simply indirect light that's balanced over the visible spectrum as a whole but with a pronounced bump of blue.

Lowes

By the way, I have 9ft sloped ceiling in the dining room/living room space. 9 ft in entry way. Only 8 ft in kitchen and living room (hence why we went with recessed only). Kitchen island is 10 ft long but only 30 inches wide so we can’t go too wide on the light but will need 3 lights to cover the long space. Thanks all in advance for reading my long winded post.