What a great thread this has been. So much great information. Thanks so much for sharing all your thoughts.

I have halogen lights on tracks, fluorescents with full-spectrum bulbs, and incandescent lighting in my sewing room. If I had it to do again, I'd forget the halogen. It doesn't add that much. The fluorescent ceiling lights are the best, followed by OTT task lighting.

I also did not like the halogen lighting tooooooo hot.

I do not have a sewing room but I love the Ott light near my crafting area - no matter what I do. In other areas I like to have a mix of swirly bulbs, old fashioned bulbs and "real" lights. The Halogens are hot but I love the track light that has them and I put my ironing board under them so I can see better. I set up my cutting pad on my kitchen island that has spots, giving me great light to cut. So my best advice would be to go check them out in a showroom or friends home. If you buy lamps, you can move them easily.

I have a long florescent light directly above my cutting table. Regret it because my rulers have a glare from the light above the table and I have to move and adjust just to see the measurements on the rulers correctly. It is cheaper for me to change out the light, as every ruler has the glare. Drives me up the wall sometimes. Need to frost them up somehow or change out the light.

So glad this thread was started..as we just installed the Halogen, we just called the contractor and having them replaced. We were afriad that the house would burn down....we thought it was just our lights prior to reading this thread. Even though they will not start a fire we do not like how hot they are and in a very short period of time. I do learn a ton on this site!!!

Oh one other thing did just learn. All light bulbs have a daytime, night time and one other...can't remember..when we put the lights in our new light fixture one three looked brown and one white. We thought they sent us the wrong holder the light. it was the bulb instead and they explained the different lights (Day, evening etc.) we had no idea...we now will start ready the light package. ; )

My DH put in a 36" fixture up on the ceiling of my tiny 7x10 sewing/quilting room and we used kitchen/bath "flo" in it. Wonderful light, close to true light and really easy on these old eyes.

I have to agree with the above, we purchased new lighting for my sewing room which is 12 ' by 14 feet - 18 inch circular flourescent daylight and I am very pleased with the light, it is just like stepping outside into the daylight. If I am feeling tired - I can go into my sewing room and have no feelings of being tired after a couple of minutes - the lighting just seems to make me more energized. I would highly recommend these to anyone thinking of putting in new lighting. You can also get a variety of sizes to choose from. We took off the cover to show that it has two circular bulbs inside.[ATTACH=CONFIG]423880[/ATTACH]

My husband put up track lighting for me last fall. We used halogen. They were great during the late fall and winter, but this spring and summer they were so hot it was over 80 in my sewing room most day. Two weeks ago we replaced the halogen track with LED track lights. They put out much more light and are so much cooler. They cost more, but the lamps should still be burning long after I am no longer using the room!