They looked a lot better as beer cans

One particular design element which has somehow been accepted today as indispensable (albeit cost-effective) and which looks completely out of place in a restoration of a home over 70 years old is the ceiling can light, aka work lighting, task lighting etc, etc. To mis-quote Jimmy Buffett “They looked a lot better as beer cans.”

It seems every designer and remodeler today has accepted can lights as the only solution to illuminate those areas, typically in the kitchen. How did we live through 50 years of electrical lighting without the can light without straining our eyesight? Very well and elegantly. Lighting manufacturers did recognize the need for this type of illumination over working and task areas. In fact it was even more important back then as ceilings were typically higher and the wattage of available light bulbs was lower.

Can, or work lighting, task lighting, etc, etc, is often pointed out in interior descriptions. What seems to be forgotten in these examples is the Inverse Square Law for Light Intensity, which states the intensity of light is in an inverse proportion to the square of the distance from the source. Simply exlained if a light bulb is twice as close to the work surface (3 feet away verses 6 feet away for example) it will provide 4 times the amount of luminosity at the work surface, 3x closer (example: 3 feet vs. 9 feet away) it will provide 9x the amount of intrinsic luminosity, 4 times closer 16x etc etc.

So the best solution to provide adequate task lighting is to get the light source as close to the work surface as possible. Vintage lighting provided the solution back then and it can provide the authentic solution today.