A Long Break for Lighting

After a long winter and a long break from modeling, I have found the time and energy to move forward. I began installing lighting for the area of our living room where the module will eventually sit.

Our living room when we bought the house was without lighting of any kind.  While it was my plan to install lighting from day one, I wasn't sure how I wanted to go about it with 8' ceilings. Furthermore, lighting the layout with a valance that extended 26" seemed out of the question from an aesthetic point of view and it would overpower the space in our living room. Most important of all, I wanted the lighting to be permanent to the home so that when we do move, there is only the task of removing wall brackets for the modules and some minor patch and paint work.

I settled on this model for the module location through Home Depot: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Hampton-Bay-10-ft-5-Light-Antique-Bronze-Retro-Pinhole-Flexible-Track-Lighting-Kit-EC6827ABZ/

With the default (6) GU10 halogen bulbs, I get an output of 500 lumens per bulb. Total lumens sit at about 3000. This puts about 215 foot candles on the layout space. This is towards the high end what is required for task lighting, although it is far short of the 1,000 foot candles provided by average daylight.

While I could have added more, priority was the ability to resell the house in the future without altering lighting at this location and having lights that balance with the remaining lights in the room. (5 recessed cans and an additional track light)

Overall, I am very happy with the results thus far and adding a dimmer switch for the track is a very nice feature to have. Negatives that I have found are as follows:

• The lights currently sit at around 2800K which is too warm for my liking, 
• The lights produce a bit of a halo effect.
• They run very hot.

I plan to change all of the bulbs to LED as they burn out as I have with all of the other bulbs in my house. I prefer the bright white bulbs that can be found at Home Depot that put out light at 3000K, yet experimentation will be needed eventually to find the right balance. The color control LED bulbs that are coming out now are very intriguing...

On to the next project!