Hi rfsydney

Sorry to hear about your experience. A good lighting designer with create a well-designed plan and layout all the lighting for you.

You have many lighting options, but most importantly the plan should have a purpose. It should relate to furniture layout, how the rooms are used, which walls you want to accent (for artwork etc) and the mood you want to achieve in the room, to name a few.

Wall wash lighting will not only serve as a means to highlight your artwork or other features, but also as indirect light. These are placed between 12" and 24" away depending on the effect your going for and the ceiling height.

You may want to also consider an effect called "grazing" for your fireplace, where the lights are placed between 6-12" away, and shine close to the face of the wall. This will highlight both the overall wall but also the texture of the materials. Here are a few examples of grazing on projects we've completed, as well as the "scallops" created with different wall wash lighting.

Standard recessed cans on a close grid are great for illuminating the room evenly, more important for a kitchen, but also great when you're vacuuming a room or trying to find a dropped contact lens :o)

As for brands - Halo is one of the best, there are many others. I do not like the look of eyeball light trims as they look very bulky, and prefer a flush trim like this one from Halo. http://www.amazon.com/Recessed-1420P-4-Inch-Aperture-White/dp/B0039PO0NG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349036523&sr=8-1&keywords=halo+slotted+aperture.

All of these fixtures will accept LED light bulbs.

Hope this helps

Steve

Steve's comments are very helpful for sure. I'm in a similar situation (remodeling a kitchen, foyer, living room with new fireplace surround) but not yet progressed far enough to tell you what it will look like.

I read around on the internet -- learned "How many Lumens to make a well lit room?" depends on type (kitchen, bath, bedroom, liviing, office) room and sq ft of room. Learned that a good approach is to "pick the bulb first' --- that is what color temp, color rendering index, and how to equate LED or high efficiency bulb ratings to incandescent. Learned a bit about undercabinet options and 'mood lighting'.... but it was a struggle to get there.

In the end, I fell in love with a pendant light fixture which can be shortened to hang no lower than 6 ft (after having declared I didn't want any over the island as they're just head bangers) so I let the bulbs that came with that narrow my choices from infinite to a short list from which to make final decisions.

I'm going with Halo recessed lighting (contractor recommendation), and after poking my hand in the hardware store displays, a "bright white' color temp for the most part. My contractor recommended no more than about 6 ft between recessed cans which puts about 15-16 fixtures in a 24x24 room with 2 of the light focused on art. I'm still a bit concerned over it looking like overkill with recessed cans, island pendants and undercabinet lights. At least dimmers will let me tone it down if it is too much. However, better too much than not enough -- I grew up in the Mid-west where EVERY room had a central ceiling light; now own a 1970's ranch in CA where NO room (except the bath) has lighting except for lamps. Ok-- the kitchen had one overhead light that looked like a flying saucer...UGH!. For me, lighting is an experience, a 'feel' to the room, and VERY hard to judge while standing in a lighting store..

For the living room, I'm having fake beams put in and will run track lighting on those as I plan to have the walls full of art and want the fireplace surround to be noticed. I've ordered 1/2 the track lights as 'spots" (25 degree spread) and 1/2 as floods (60 degree spread). Ending up with 12 fixtures across 4 tracks there.

Unless someone in the family is an electrical whiz, you are going to have to have an electrician to do this work for you. Why not cut out the middleman, who didn't help much, and relieve some worry by bringing in the electrician, telling him what you want to accomplish, and ask him how to do it. Then if you like what he says, have him give you a bid.

Halo is a good manf. good product
The key to a good lighting plan is to have a range of dark and lite spaces ( or you can;t see the forest for the trees ) modulate the foot candles up and down to highlight the space don't create a uniform wash throughout the room
make sure the LED lights are 2700K warm white or it will look like an office
use recessed can ( max 4" ) keyed to furniture , use others with adjustable downlights aiming as opposed to eyeball which are not the best looking due to their odd shape
if you want diffused quality use the glazing tech on textured wall - include dimmers but make sure the LED are they dimmable type , replace the dining table light with one that has more mass and bigger scale to anchor this space.

Just noticed this is a very old post. Problem is probably fixed by now