You are here: Home / 2013 / July / 27 / If You Are Fortunate

If You Are Fortunate

Published on by

you know that a good life begins in the kitchen.

While Mr. Big Food & I were away fishing, Daughter C took it upon herself to conduct a BIG transformation of the kitchen.

It’s orange. I love orange.

She painted the walls Mississippi clay orange and the backsplash slate write-on-it-grey.

She apologized for the French– there was no need! This is awesome!

Big Food

BIG LIFE.

7 Responses

  1. What kind of lightbulbs do you have? If you have T12s, the diameter of the bulb will be 1/5 inches. The description on the bulb will be either F40T12, or F34T12 – depending on how old they are. After the T12, would be a color description – probably CW, for cool white.

    If you have T8s, then the description would be F32T8 or FO32 – depending on the brand. The 32 would be followed by a color designation – probably sp41 (GE brand) or 741.

    If you have T12s, then buy replacement bulbs soon – even if you don’t need them. They’re being phased out. You can’t get CW anymore – only CWX, which is basically the same but supposedly more energy efficient but costs about twice as much.

    In the next couple of years, they’ll be unavailable and you’ll be forced to switch your fixtures to F32T8s, whether you want to or not.

    I’d recommend that you look for bulbs with “D” (stands for Daylight) if they’re T12s, or 750 or 765 if you have T8s. Only because I have them in my kitchen and like them. The color is much whiter and appears much brighter – even though the actual light output is the same.

    Of course, if you take my advice…you might find them ugly because they’re white to the point of being blueish – it’s a matter of personal taste and color coordination…and there’s no accounting for taste – right?! But it _would_ brighten up your kitchen!

    1. Daughter C is the professional kitchen/bath designer and believe me there has been considerable talk of lighting in the last 24 hours. We’re going to install some under the cabinet light tape strips. They are actually quite bright. That should help with work space lighting on the counter.

      I haven’t a clue what kind of bulbs they are other than the same as in the workshop.

      The kitchen is dark, but the entire main part of the house is dark! Guys describe it as resembling a hunting lodge.

      So we’re talking about completely replacing the three ceiling fixtures in the kitchen. They are gawd awful, aren’t they? I will be sure Caroline sees your comments. When it comes to this stuff, I’ll be happy to defer to you experts!

      Thanks!!

  2. The desk lamp appears to me to be fluorescent – and the color isn’t the same as the ceiling lights…it appears to be whiter…

    1. This is a separate issue. John has always had his desk in the kitchen and he has a real need for intense light on his keyboard. I just try to find the brightest light I can for him! Aesthetics be damned. 🙂

  3. For under the counter lights – I assume LEDs? Still pretty expensive, but long lasting and very good for under the counter applications.

    I wouldn’t be in a big rush to completely redo the flourescents…things are changing so fast right now. LEDs are going to be pretty much mandatory within about 5 years, I’m guessing, and the competition is starting to heat up. Prices are starting to come down somewhat, but they’re still pricey. LEDs for close applications are a good choice, but they don’t have beam width ability yet, and they also don’t project light well. If you don’t use fluorescents, your next choice is likely to be can lights. The good news about those is that if you get screw in sockets, you can start with incandescents/halogens, switch to screw in fluorescents, then put in the LED replacements. That way also, you can replace one or two at a time. As I said – they’re pricey. If you get LEDs, make sure you know what the guarantees are – how long, replacement or pro-rated or whatever – and keep a special file for your receipts. They’re pricey…and if they say they last for 5-7 years and only last 2…you better have the receipt!

    LEDs are now coming in warm white and cool white, but what they call cool white is daylight in fluorescents…very blue-white.

    Re John’s light…that wasn’t a criticism* – only an observation. It appears that he has a daylight bulb and the ceiling lights are cool white. If you don’t find the white white objectionable (and some people do) then when you replace the overheads, look for Daylight or 750 or 765 for your color.

    Is his light an Ott light? They’re usually 65K.

    *There is no valid criticism when it comes to preferences…we like what we like. I have 65K in my kitchen, but even 41K is too cold for the TV room. But it sounds a bit like your preference is for a warmer color…nothing wrong with that either!

    1. “LEDs are going to be pretty much mandatory within about 5 years.”

      How can this be? Haven’t you heard the Libertarians are taking over? And their expressed mission is to leave us alone!

      This is awesome information to have. Yes. The strip is LED. And tiny! The feature Caroline liked about it was that it’s not visible– doesn’t protrude from the bottom of the cabinet.

      What do you think? Another option would be to have bare 90 watt light bulbs just dangling from the ceiling!

      Passing this along to C.

  4. “Another option would be to have bare 90 watt light bulbs just dangling from the ceiling!”

    Heh. Sure…until they eliminated them! They’ve already eliminated 100 watt bulbs, and 75 watt bulbs. You can get 95 watt bulbs – as long as they’re from foreign firms (?) and 67 (nominally 75 watt) watt bulbs, but as of January 1st 2014, the 60s and 40s are going to be gone. I doubt that they’re going to leave us the 90s…

    We can no longer get 50par20 bulbs – they’ve been replaced by 39par20s (50 and 39 are watts, the 20 refers to the size). Both are halogens. Halogens are a type of incandescent, but more efficient. They say that the 39s are “equal” in light output, but the fact is that they put out about 50 lumens less. How much that is effectively, I don’t know – but I do know it isn’t _equal_. Likewise 75 par lamps. I’m not even sure what is supposed to replace them.

    It’s really frustrating.

    And about enough to make someone a political activist…that’s for sure!

Comments are closed.