In article .com,
"jkn" writes:
Hi Andrew

[...]
eventually. So given that the current Centre lamp is a 65W 5 foot
strip, what sort of uplighting wattage should I be thinking of?

You should paint the ceiling matt white (titainuim dioxide) for
maximum reflection and diffusion. Also make sure tops of cupboards
are white (doesn't need to be matt). You will need more power
because of losses at non-perfect reflective surfaces.
What is the length of the cupboard run?

about 2m. Do you use reflectors on the indirect lights, or just allow
the light to bounce around?

Reflectors would be good, but difficult to find. There used to
be a scrap metal yard near me and they had loads of off-cuts
from a lighting manufacturer with highly reflective aluminimum
alloy plain and specular reflector sheets, but sadly they closed
down. On one occation, I had a pile of mirror tiles I had taken
off the wall, and I put those along the top of the cupboard in
front of the lamp. It doesn't make a lot of difference. If you
had a lot of space between the cupboard and ceiling, I might
suggest using perimeter wall washers on their sides so they
wash the ceiling instead (with light), but 10" isn't enough
far enough away for a perimeter wall washer to reach far out
along the ceiling -- you'll do better with a bare tube.
(Perimeter wall washers are the lights you'll find in shops
recessed in the ceiling about 2' in front of wall displays.
You might not even think they are on, as they have virtually
no light spill behind them because the reflectors accurately
direct all the light towards the display wall.)

Are you thinking of any other lighting in the room, such as
under cupboard, down lighters or uplighters on the other side
of the room, etc?

I'm now, after this thread, thinking of keeping the current
centre-of-room cable, and fit some sort of directional multi-bulb
fitting, as well as the top-of-cupboard lighting.

The trouble with that is that wherever you are working around
the room, you will be working in your own shadow. That's why I
say a central light in a kitchen is not functional (unless you
have something directly below it to illuminate), but it might
be decorative. Think about taking a second feed from the
centre point to the other side of the room.

What height of object is the largest you can stand on the top
of the cupboard at the back, and yet it not be visible when you
are standing at the other side of the room?

about four inches - I can just see the top of the extractor hood pipe.
There is about another six inches of clearance above that.

I would suggest you use your existing fluorescent fitting to
experiment. If the fluorescent fitting is some 2 - 2½" wide
(remove any diffuser so the bare tube is exposed), you could
put it on top of the cupboard on its side with the tube facing
the room, and it will be invisible. You could even bring it
forward to half the cupboard depth and it should still be
invisible in the room. This will also give you a good idea
where dark areas may exist in the room. Expect the room to
be darker than it was as I said earlier. You could improve
this by using a 6' fitting (if it fits), but I think you'd do
better to supplement with local under cupboard lighting and/or
a light on the other side of the room as I suggested earlier.
Also, a freshly painted ceiling will help a lot when it's
been plastered.

Would you drill through the joists to carry the cable across or is

Yes. Don't make the holes too big (a lighting cable will
go through a 10 or 12mm hole), and position them roughly
centrally between the top and bottom of the beam.

I would suggest you terminate the cable with a Klik S26
architrave socket on the wall just above the cupboard top.
You can pick these up from a local electrical wholesaler,
with a matching P22 plug, and use a short flex to connect
it to the light on the cupboard.

--
Andrew Gabriel