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I've had this problem in one of my household's kitchens. In fact, with the bright white surfaces, I can't even see plates that are set down upon them at night when the overhead lights are on. But I did find that only a very slight twinge of grey on those surfaces helped solve the problem and they still look mostly white. I wonder why you need to go so much darker in your case. Perhaps some adjustments in either direction of your Game Options graphics settings would help a bit?

http://simsl3gacies.com/blog/2013/1...e-lighting-mod/
There ya go!

Ha, I should have known there was a better solution all this time than just making everything under the sun (pun intended) grey or patterned.

This seems endemic to the game and is not system dependent. I wonder if a bloom effect is being applied. My solution was to create a profile for the game in my vid drivers and reduce the gamma there; not perfect but better than being blinded by any white horizontal surface - countertops, table tops, floors (often looked like there was lighting beneath the floor), and especially snow (try searching for collectibles when the entire landscape is brilliant, almost glowing, white).