Home lighting help

[Klutch9]

We are in the process of renovating a room in our basement. The room is about 20' long, 9' deep. with a load-bearing beam splitting the room in half the short way (so two 10'x9' rooms essentially, beam hangs down about 8"). We are lighting the room with can lights, same as the rest of the basement. This room has a low ceiling height, at about 7'6" to the bottom of the beams. So far, I have installed 2 LED can light retrofits on each side of the beam; they are 'centered' in each side, about 6' from each other. The light output is good, about 830 lumens per unit, but obviously there are still darker spots on the walls and in the corners; these lights have a fantastic beam spread (120 degrees IIRC), but that's still the nature of can lighting. I was considering changing the layout to 4 lights per side, arranged in a square, but that seems like an absurd amount of light in that size room. Besides, they are intense if you happen to look directly at them. They will be dimmable, FWIW.

We had considered adding one 60w equiv omni-directional bulb to each side, on a separate switch, in case we needed more light, but I don't know if that'd look very good. We tested it with a temporary wire in place, and it definitely helped though. Any ideas to address light distribution with a short ceiling height?

 

[Chris Meutsch]

What about 3 lights per side in a straight line?

 

[VeryNoisyPoet]

For that size of room with a low ceiling lit with recessed cans, four lights per side is the way to go if you want even coverage and less dark spots on the walls. Downsize the retrofits to 500 to 600 lumens each. Space them 2.5 feet out from the walls, which will give a 5 foot separation between each can the long way and 4 foot separation the short way. The wide beam will bounce a lot more light off the walls and into the corners, and the center of the room will appear evenly lit. Lowering the intensity of each light source, increasing their number, and filling in dark corners will do wonders for reducing glare.

What will the space be used for? If dark ceiling corners will bug you, would a tall torchiere type floor lamp in the corners be an option to fill in the dark spots?

 

[JHZR2]

I don’t see the downside to adding more lights if they are dimmable. .

 

[eljefino]

If you have a drywall ceiling you can add wall sconces that shoot up and reflect off of it. They can be on a separate switch from the can lights and will reflect better/ have softer light.

Can lights are cool but very spotty with low ceilings. Nature of the beast. Would be good for a media room for watching TV. A pool table would want a light hanging directly over it in the classic tradition.

You could also put in a switched outlet then fiddle with the supplementary lighting later. Floor lamps that shoot up, who knows where, move until happy.

 

[tomcat27]

Four per side. That's what I did in my basement with similar dimensions.