I hate the recessed lights in my kitchen. What are my options?

Q: My townhouse was built with can lights in the ceiling. What are my options to replace them? In the kitchen, I am always cooking in my shadow and can’t see anything!

A: A smart lighting plan directs light to where you cook or wash dishes and accounts for the fact that you need to be there, too. But when you’re working with lights that are already in place, it’s much more difficult to find a solution that doesn’t entail a lot of expense and mess.

“Lighting is all about having electricity where you need it,” said Sidney Genette, owner of Lighting Designs, a Seattle company that helps design lighting plans for residential and commercial customers. So while it’s theoretically possible to relocate or add recessed lights, that’s probably not a good solution because you’d need a good electrician as well as pros to patch and repaint the ceiling.

Short of that, one solution would be to add a hood with a built-in light over the stove. Or, depending on how your kitchen is laid out, you could add a plug-in task light or have an electrician wire in one that you mount to the side of a nearby cabinet or to the wall. Make sure it’s shaded, though, so the glare doesn’t get in your eyes. Pendant lights hung to one or both sides of where you stand might also work. And if upper cabinets are nearby, adding lighting under the overhang could help.

You might also be able to get better results from the can lights without remodeling, Genette said. If your can lights are recessed well into the ceiling, they produce light that streams down in a cone shape. By installing an LED retrofit kit, you can convert the can to a lens-type fixture that spreads light across the ceiling. The more even light might help illuminate the area where you cook and make the shadow less harsh. Plus, unless you already have LEDs in the can lights, the new fixtures should help reduce energy use.

If your cans have screw-in bulbs, you can make the switch yourself if you are comfortable working on a ladder. If the cans have wired-in ballasts or fluorescent lights that attach differently, you’ll need an electrician. Either way, you probably won’t need to patch or even repaint the ceiling.

If you have screw-in bulbs, get a retrofit kit that’s sized for the diameter of the trim rings on your current lights and has a connector that screws into an Edison bulb base. One example is the Halo integrated LED recessed light trim. First, shut off the power at the electrical panel. Then unscrew the bulb and pop out the trim ring, screw in the adapter, and press the fixture into place. Spring arms push against the can light housing to hold the new assembly in place.

The Halo kit allows you to adjust the brightness and color temperature of the light, as well as the angle, which is useful on a sloped ceiling. The controls are built into the fixture, so set them before you install it. If you decide later that you want different settings, you will need to climb back up the ladder, remove the fixture and make the changes — not terribly convenient, but at least it doesn’t cost anything.

For brightness, the Halo model has two options, 600 lumens, equivalent to a typical 60-watt incandescent bulb (if you remember what that was like), or 975 lumens, like a 75-watt incandescent. For kitchens, Genette recommends going with the higher setting. “You want as much light as possible,” he said. LEDs don’t burn out as quickly as incandescent or compact-fluorescent bulbs, but they do get dimmer over time, and when they get too dim to be useful, you will need to replace the whole fixture. Starting with a brighter light makes the useful life longer.

Color temperature, which is usually referred to as “warm” light or “cool” light, affects the ambience of a room and the sharpness of what you see. The temperatures are measured in degrees Kelvin, with low temperatures having yellowish light and high temperatures having blue light. Genette recommends 2700K, “the color of an old-fashioned incandescent bulb,” for residential use. In a kitchen or other workspace, some people like the crisper look of cooler light, maybe 2900K to 3000K, which is similar to what a halogen bulb would produce, Genette said. For use in a home kitchen, he strongly recommends against 3500K or anything higher because it will make the room seem harsh and cold. The Halo model adjusts as high as 5000K but also has a temperature setting called D2W, for “dim to warm.” Used with a compatible dimmer switch, it allows you to adjust the light to 3000K when you’re working, then turn it down to 1800K when you’re entertaining or enjoying the meal.

If you have screw-in lights now, you can install retrofit kits in just one or two cans to test whether the change will make a big enough difference in your kitchen to warrant switching all of them. If you have a dimmer switch, test with it set at maximum power, Genette said. But all lights controlled by a single switch should be the same, Genette said, so once the test is done, change the rest of the lights or reinstall the old setup in the can you tested. If you have numerous can lights in your kitchen, you might want to choose a model to test that’s sold in multiples, which can result in a significant savings.

Or if you want something altogether different, there are many ways to get light where you want it. In a kitchen with just a single overhead light, for example, it’s possible to replace that fixture with a track system that has multiple lights positioned where they work best.

Figuring out lighting can be tricky. If you can’t come up with a good solution on your own, consider hiring a lighting designer to come to your house. Genette makes house calls — $300 for a two-hour consultation.