Some years back I replaced most all of our incandescent light bulbs with CFL's. The problem was at the time the only type they had were the "Soft White" color bulbs. These are the ones that give off a yellowish cast of light. They were OK, but never seemed to be bright enough regardless of the wattage.
While I was going to Home Depot during this whole bathroom remodeling project, Mel asked me to pick up some more bulbs because we were out. I found out purely by accident they now come in 3 different shades. "Soft White", "Daylight", and "Bright White". I bought the "Bright White" one's, and what a difference!
They gave off over twice the light, (lumens), in comparison in the same wattage bulb. It made so much of a difference I ended up replacing all of the bulbs in the house with the "Bright White" models, and even went to a higher wattage. It made an unbelievable difference in the whole overall interior lighting of the house. So much so I even replaced my pool lights with them. They're not only brighter, but the quality of light is much better and easier on the eyes.
We also had an old builder grade, canister type fixture over the kitchen sink, that was getting yellow from age, so I replaced it with a nice brushed Stainless and glass globe fixture, and put a bright white CLF in it. It was unbelievable how much it improved the lighting in the whole kitchen. Out here in the Summer it get's so hot in the afternoon, you want to keep Sunlight entering the home to a minimum. Or else it can really raise the temp inside the house, and your A/C will have to work much harder to keep up. So having good interior lighting is all that much more important.
And that brings up another good point with these. These newer model bright white bulbs burn much cooler to the touch after they've been on for a while, than the older soft white bulbs I had. When you figure how many bulbs you have in the entire house, that makes a big difference in helping to keep things cool. No doubt the ballasts in these newer bright white bulbs are much more efficient than they were several years ago when I first bought the soft white bulbs.
Another thing is these type of bulbs are getting cheap as hell now. While the LED bulbs are still quite pricey. Most of the LED's they had on display were nowhere near as bright, and had that yellowish cast like my old CFL's did. So until they get cheaper and brighter, I took a pass on them. I do have one LED in a 3-Way lamp I have, but that's it. This whole deal didn't cost much at all. Even with the new kitchen fixture it was just over $100.00 for everything. And as my eyes get worse with age, it has made a huge difference! Do it and you'll see things in your house you probably never noticed before.