In our first home we had my all time favorite living room lighting, It is probably not fashionable now. There was a wooden valance over the double doors to the outside. The curtains were hung underneath the valance but on top of a shelf (probably about halfway up the valance) was a row of lights ,maybe fluorescent. You couldn't see them but the light reflected off the ceiling and lit the room without any glare. It was almost like having sunlight. I have never had lighting in a living room since that was bright enough to do anything (read, sew, etc.) that didn't glare in your eyes and mess up the TV.

oops

This post was edited by musicteacher on Sun, Jul 20, 14 at 17:55

How about sconces?

I went with 4: LED recessed lighting and cove lighting. However, there are no table lamps in the room so different situation I guess.

"my builder doesn't suggest using recessed lighting on a vaulted ceiling"

Your builder isn't going to be living there, so it really doesn't matter what he likes or doesn't like! We have 4 rooms with vaulted ceilings and they all have recessed lights with dimmers. Sometimes you really want to light up a room, for example when cleaning or trying to find that spider that scampered away ... a few table lamps aren't going to give you that kind of light. A mix of both lights, all on dimmers, covers all types of lighting moods.

Perhaps the reason for not liking cans in a vaulted ceiling is insulation....they act like holes in the roof in terms of heat loss.

You could look at rail and cove. If there are beams, you can mount lights to the beams.

Perhaps this will help

Here is a link that might be useful: Lighting vaulted ceilings

That may be true if you have fiberglass insulation. With closed cell foam it's not always an issue.

Even if closed cell foam, you have to have enough space to use cans that have boxes that allow for contact insulation...and depending on how the place was built, there may or may not be enough room for that.

Yup, that's what I did - it happened at the same time the ceiling was raised from 8'. The rafters were overspanned anyway so they were sistered with appropriately sized lumber. IC cans and closed cell went in, and the rest is history :)

I have vaulted ceilings in a 1970s house. I haven't yet solved my lighting problem, but ideally I would love to do a combination of recessed lighting and something more decorative like some fairly simple chandeliers or pendants. The recessed lighting would help add the necessary illumination, while pendants or chandeliers would add some interest and draw the eye up.