I had an electrician come by today to install some new recessed cans for me. Turns out he's a lighting specialist and he talked me into upgrading the cheap builder trims in my kitchen to Juno alzac trims. He also swapped out my mix of fluourescent and incandescent bulbs for the GE Edison bulbs. The difference is amazing.
Here's a before shot - you can see the bulbs glaring in your eyes in this photo.
Here's the after shot with the new trims. Note that the lights are on in this photo, but you can't tell! The colors in the kitchen really pop now, and the lights are significantly brighter - I need to install a dimmer now. The only downside is that the quality of the light seems more directed and less difuse, leading to some slight shadows that I never noticed before; this may be due simply to the fact that the lights are so much brighter and might go away when I install a dimmer.
Here's an in-between shot. All the lights are on, but you can only tell with the three trims that haven't yet been replaced. BTW, I was sweating bullets (worrying about my granite cracking) when he had to get up on a ladder on my island. I put down some 3/4" plywood and kept a sharp watch to make sure he didn't stand or put the ladder over the overhang.
