If you have vaulted ceilings, put up lots of lighting. We remodeled and the first thing we did was add bars along the beams with lights and we also hung 4 lights that look like star trek over a bar. Vaulted ceilings seem to swallow light. We also added a fan with a light in it in another section.

Not trying to hijack your thread BUT can I ask another couple of questions about vaulted ceilings? Has anyone installed speakers in a vaulted ceiling? How was the sound? We don't need absolutely perfect sound but the "sound guy" really advises against this - and we don't like any of the other options.

I wonder if it depends on the height of your ceiling. Our ceiling is 16ft at the hightest and to me, it seemed too high to have something dangling down. Plus, I don't want to get in the way of the windows. DH had the electrician wire for hanging light, but I'm not sure we are going to install anything. At least not right away.

We put 5 can lights in on our vaulted ceiling. They have some kind of swivel mechanism...The main purpose I had in mind was to highlight the fireplace & provide light when you flip a switch. Yes, I know you can do that with lamps, but our lamps are forever getting switched off by one kid or the other and then there is no light.
Anyways, I'm not really much help, but I sure do understand your dilemma.

Good luck!

We have 8 recessed, 3 wall sconces and a ceiling fan with lighting. There are also built in areas on each side of the fireplace, and they each have a recessed light above them. The room is well lit at night. We often don't need the lights during the day at all.We do have quite a few windows in there though.
BTW, I don't think any of the lights are on in these pics. Just wanted to give you a feel for the size of the room:

Sorry to hijack!
I am wondering about the sizes of your great room windows, it has been one of our back and forth design issues. We currently have 2'6 on the sides and 5'0 in the center and I was wondering what yours are as our window will have a similar configuration, also, what are the dimensions of your great room? Thanks!
Ok, back to lighting, this thread is giving us ideas for that too!

FWIW - We have speakers in our vaulted ceiling. The pitch is 5:12 - so it's not really a very steep ceiling. The room is quite large approx (36' x 24')and sound quality is lovely.

Perhaps different speakers would make your sound guy feel better about mounting them in your vaulted ceiling?

Cans in a high ceiling have been useless to us. I wish I'd thought to install uplights to 'wash' the ceiling with light. Check out the 'Lighting' or 'electrical' forums.

Like Chisue said~I was told the same thing by the supervisor of my build. If it's a 2-story room, they're completely useless. I'll be hanging a fixture with as many as 12 lights,each one 100w~it will be on a dimmer. I'll have several lamps for ambient lighting and reading, as I don't care for highly lit rooms.

Uplights are a very good solution, especially used with plants.

Lorraineal - what kind of speakers did you use?

We had a fan with lights in our last 2-story ceiling, but when we built this time, we decided not to put any lights (or anything else) on the family room ceiling (it's 20 ft high). In our case, the upstairs has a bridge with an overlook to the family room on one side and the foyer on the other. Mostly we didn't want to obstruct the view outside from the upstairs bridge. There are lights above the upstairs bridge which cast some light downstairs (not much).

Regarding speakers, we learned the trick from the construction guys who worked on our last house that if you have a bridge like we do, it's the absolutely perfect place to put speakers. That's where they always put their boom boxes. The whole house sounds as if it's wired for sound, but no one ever knows where the sound is coming from. :-) It worked so great in our last house, we did it again for this house (the speakers aren't visible in the photo). We ran blue smurf tube for the speaker wires.

Trudymom-
We have 6 can lights and one giant ceiling fan. The side of the great room you can't see in my pic has the open stairwell, which also has a large hanging fixture, and a couple of sconces flanking the front door. (I only mention this to explain why we only have 6 cans.) Our cans provide really nice light, I'm not certain why some people don't get any benefit from them. We added a dimmer also, which we love.

Expatintoro-
We have Bose in-ceiling speakers, you can see them in the picture also. The sound is good. I think they would sound even better if we didn't have hardwood floors. They are certainly more than sufficient for my taste. My DH is going to upgrade the size of the Zon controller that is feeding our two sets of in-ceiling speakers in the GR/kitchen. He thinks part of the reason they don't sound amazing is that they are underpowered.

Regardless, I did not want wall mounted speakers in these spaces and I'm very happy.

I have a 12-12 ceiling that tops out at 23 feet. I feel that the big volume of space up there needs to be illuminated-- at least a little-- to keep if from seeming as though it's bearing down on you.

So we are hanging two ceiling fans with light, one above the great room, the other in the adjoining loft library.

But they won't hang way down like Tarzan swings or anything, and they will only provide a bit of a glow, enough to navigate, but not much more.

msu girl, can you tell me about your fan? i love it!

i have a vaulted ceiling with can lights. they are very bright so we have a dimmer. i rarely use them as i would rather just have a lamp on in the evening when we're watching tv. the cans shine in your eyes. they do work great if we're playing a game and want lots of light, or for cleaning or something like that. i would like to add a ceiling fan to the center of the vault. i didn't want one when we built the house because i liked the look better without. but now i would like to have one to help circulate the air.

Thanks midwestmom! Our fan is the Brookedale made by Hampton Bay. We purchased at either Lowe's or Home Depot. It's 60", so it's to scale when you have a vauled ceiling. 60" moves a lot of air also!

Sorry I don't know what brand of speakers we have. I just know that speakers come in all kinds of sizes and configurations so maybe there are ones better suited for vaulted ceiling than others?

As far as lighting is concerned, we have can lights in the ceiling, decorative sconces on the walls and a soffit around the perimeter of the room with concealed ropelights that act to lighten the ceiling. Eventually, we'll have table/floor lamps in the space as well. Most of the lights are on dimmers, too. Layering the lights allows for setting moods and as you age, you'll find that you need more light to see clearly. The only downside I've found is that I have so many light switches it's been hard to keep track of what turns on what.

Fishpants,
Hi, I am new at this, so bear with me as I try to communicate. We are finalizing house plans and are admiring your cathedral ceiling/fireplace arrangement. We are also wondering what the size of your great room is, more specifically the height at the peak of the ceiling??
How tall are the walls?? We are placing our fireplace in exactly the same format, but I am worried that our vaulted ceiling isn't high enough. Thanks.

Here you go -- these have been posted a few times. 28 feet from floor to the center beam. Mini-halogen floods, 3 across, on every second cross beam, with ones on each end of beam washing the walls. Chandelier hangs to above a dining table (about 4 ft above). R40 75 watt equiv. in the cans. All on dimmers.

In am builing a beach house with 18 ft. ceiling in great room. Has an "overlook" from hallway above. If I go with combo of cans/lamps & maybe a fan/light...what are issues with changing bulbs in cans & dust..