On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 08:18:26 -0500, "Alexander Galkin"
wrote:

I am going to build kitchen cabinets and plan to install undercabinet and
inside cabinet lighting. Can someone advise me about the options? What's
advantage of using low voltage over 120V lighting? If low voltage is a
choice when a transformer is placed? Is transformer quite enough? What type
of bulbs are the best? What's the usual spacing between bulbs? And finally
where can I buy good quality undercabinet lighting hardware?


Most of the homes we work in have some type of under counter lighting.
Most use the fluorescent, probably because of lower cost to the
builder. Normally the electrician has pre-wired for the florescent
lights and we bring the wires through the bottom of the cabinet back.

An electrician we worked for used what we call hockey puck lights.
I'm not sure if they were halogen or xeon. He wired a switched box in
each run for his transformers. In that installation we built a false
bottom in the cabinets so that the lights did not come through the
actual cabinet bottom and the wires going from light to light were
also hidden in the void. Kind of a pain to do but the finished
product was very clean, inside and out.

One of our builders uses rope lighting as an accent behind the bottom
rail of the cabinet front, at the toe space. It's a nice soft look
along the floor. I've also seen rope lighting used inside a vanity
that had a clear lexan sink. It looked pretty cool when you walked
in the room but when standing at the sink you could see the plumbing.
I think that one was the decorator's idea.

Mike O.