Kitchen light makeover

Question

I want to make a change in my small kitchen light area. There are two long fluorescent ballasts and one needs replaced. I like the grid but not sure what I can do different for light fixtures. Last resort is to fix them and get new plastic covers as these are pretty yellowed. Any ideas for me? As these are the only lights in the work area they need to be bright. Thanks in advance!

Marion Nesbitt · Answer

Would remove the plastic coverings. My friend has similar in his kitchen and has cracked some of the plastic panels taking them out to clean out the dead mosquitoes, change the bulbs, etc. Could you replace the lights with pot lights?

Leslie Hahn-Waldrop · Answer

I would take the plastic coverings out also and remove the grids and paint the ceiling white. You could leave the grids if you cant/dont want to remove them and just paint them white also so everything blends. If you dont change the lights like Marion said you could change the wattage if they are to bright.

Kaye Watkins · Answer

What are pot lights.???If you're talking about the systems used to grow marijuana you can not put them in your kitchen.... bulbs are high wattage & you're not even suppose to look at them & they put out a lot of heat.

Barbara · Answer

I had similar light fixtures in our previous home. I tried relacing the plastic, painting behind the fixtures and I wasn't really excited about any of our efforts. Finally I replaced the flourescent with a track light system. Bingo! it provided the necessary light, the canopy of the grid hid the tracking system and the new plastic we had purchased added just the right finishing touch. You may not have the same depth we had, so the canned lights that Marion suggested after painting the ceiling all one color. Canned lighting, also refered to as 'pot lights', are designed to recess into the ceiling and are often used to place lighting across a wide expanse of ceiling. We have them in our family room and they do a very effective lighting job but do require rewiring the room.

Jane · Answer

Kaye, pot lights refer to the shape of the lights, not the plant material.

Linda Holland · Answer

I would remove all if you can and  Pain ceiling White and add Pot Lights (recess lighting)  Would give you better lighting and can be place to best area for lighting!!

Katrina Warren · Answer

@Kimberly Cox I lived for years with UGLY fluorescent lights in my kitchen, until I finally got mad & ripped them out! (mad because my husband is an electrician but wouldn't change them, until he had NO Choice) We put in pendant lights. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3253926028462&set=a.2139428886730.2107129.1276387335&type=3&theater

Dahlia Walsh · Answer

I had lights like them in my house in Florida.  i started by removing all of the grid and light fixture.  It left me with a recessed square that i painted  and then had three pendulam light fixtures. You can use two depending how large your recess is and then I put crown molding around the perimeter of the ceiling recess. It turned out great.  I have one in my kitchen now & intend to do the same thing again although the recess will be smaller.  I did it all myself except for the pendulum lights, which I left for the electrician.

Gale Allen Jenness · Answer

I’ve build and installed a lot of light boxes familiar to what you got going on here on your ceiling! Today though there’s much better improved fluorescent lights that don’t have ballast boxes to deal with at all. Including LED light fixtures as well! So you might want to look into better safer lighting fixtures rather than using the old design fixtures?

As far as your plastic goes, you can get new plastic in many different designs. But also check to see how long it’s guaranteed not to yellow? There’s plastic that’s guaranteed to not yellow for 20 years if I’m remembering correctly? Been a long time since I had to buy any of this plastic! This style faded out a long time ago in housing with all the new lighting available these days! It’s always possible if you wanted to go to the work of taking this all down and doing some touch up to finish your ceiling that you could do away with this lighting system all together and put up new modern lighting too! You not necessarily stuck with your same lighting system if you’re tired of it?

Kitchen light makeover

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Kitchen light makeover

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