The light tubes are designed to be run through closets, between walls, etc, to bring light to lower floors. But I've heard the light can be a little weird in colour, after bouncing down the tube for ~12' or so.

My current house is on the north side, and I've heard a lot of comments about how bright it is. The north wall has large windows and a door to the deck. However, there's no covered veranda outside my kitchen windows.

I think you'll want to consider a lot of electric lighting, too. Even if you had full sky lights across the room, it will get dark at night, likely when you're cooking dinner?

I second addressing this through lighting. My current kitchen faces north and only has a very small window over the kitchen sink (facing north). My cabinets are kind of that nutmeg brown color. It never seems dark or dreary to me just because I have enough overhead lighting. I certainly enjoy sitting in the sun in the family room, but I guess in the kitchen I'm too busy working on tasks to think much about getting sunlight.

My new kitchen has no windows! But it is open and close to the casual dining area that is now SOUTH facing with windows on three sides (South, East, and West). So far the house seems bright and we don't even have any lights installed yet. I think it will get plenty of indirect light from being open to the other living spaces, plus of course good electric lighting.

good luck!

I wouldn't light a kitchen any differently because of the way the windows face. The first thing to do is light the task areas from recessed ceiling fixtures.

I always pull the lower cabinets and counter out 6+ inches from the wall so the lights don't throw a scallop on the upper cabinets or light the heads of people working at the counter and I consider all counters to be work space.

Then light any exposed walls in order to brighten the room. Light on counters and walls are far more important than light on floors in a kitchen. When I am done with the counters and walls I look to see if any floor areas need light and try to avoid unnecessary light that might lessen the effect of the other lights. Most kitchens are not large enough to need additional lights.

I try to avoid fancy hanging lights over islands because they are in your line of sight if they are low and shine in your eyes if they are high. I prefer recessed pin spots to vintage surgical lights or any kind of LEDs over an island.

My kitchen is north (and front!) facing with a covered front porch, two small double hung windows over the sink, two normal double hung windows in the breakfast nook. The dining room is through a double door facing south, with two double hung windows and a French door.

The kitchen gets plenty of light, even in winter, but of course today's a sunny day :) . Having the dining room windows helps a lot. I closed the door just now and while it wasn't really darker, the light "flattened". When we moved in, there was blue trellis wallpaper, white cabinets, and white tile floor. We removed the wallpaper because it did make the kitchen look gloomy, painted it pale yellow, much nicer. I'm about to change it to Hepplewhite Ivory to match the hall, still slightly yellow but not so much.

If you find it's too dark, you could put a skylight on the verandah ceiling,

Our kitchen also faces north. I would also recommend some electrical lights, if anything for when its dark outside. :)

Personally I like north facing rooms because the sun never glares in through a north facing window. We have a wrap around porch on the entire south and west of our house.

We haven't moved in, but we're doing a lot of the work and I like the consistency of the lighting when you have something to stop the glare from South and West windows.

Thanks for the advice! Light tubes are out and lighting is in! And possibly a skylight in the veranda. And it's good to know that we likely wouldn't need more windows. After some thinking, I'm considering pushing the kitchen out and having it vaulted with no veranda in front of the kitchen. Then we could add an extra window in the vaulted part. I just don't know how everthing would shift on that side of the house. I suppose I could leave that up to our architect to see if this could work. This has been such a long process. Thanks again!

And thank you for the specific advice on lighting. We will definitely use this information.