try googling post and beam houses or post and beam homes. We have a post and beam house and have an exposed beam in both our living room and kitchen. The one in the living room is stained while the one in the kitchen is painted. We have no attic (well a minimal one) however.

I have a few images that might help.
~boxer

Tray Ceiling by Raleigh Carrey

Christopher Peacock

Fireplace Harmony Home

Capecod Kitchens

Ford Blue Bell

KB Party Central

Hampton Designs

Bromley

Julianne Moore Celebrity Kitchens

Cotedetexas

KBD Award Kitchen

In a house of your ceiling height it generally will look like this. These fixtures are probably on surface mounted junction boxes. I have also seen a lot of track lighting done with these.

Thank you all for your responses! The post and beam are a bit different than our house would likely look like...my DH needs visuals that are as close as possible to envision what it will look like.
Thanks boxerpups for all of those photos...sheesh, I love those coffered ceilings, which we could do those! A lot of them appear to have drywall with recessed lighting...I think we'd like to keep the open look with the exposed joists/flooring from the attic above.
Palimpsest...that is probably exactly what it would look like...but we would definitely paint to make it lighter. Where would the wiring for those pendants go? I would assume you'd run some sort of conduit up behind the beams?

Thanks again so much!