I've just gotten comfortable with the basics of recessed lighting in kitchens, but lighting my (much smaller) living room is my next challenge. I also have 8' ceilings to contend with. Because the room is so small we have no room for floor lamps, or even table lamps.

The previous owners of our house installed a 6' section of track about 2' away from one wall. For years we had just three r30 track fixtures hanging there, pointed in various directions in a futile attempt to light the room. There was never enough light, yet the track fixtures pointing out into the room created blinding glare problems. It was miserable, and we basically avoided being in there whenever we could.

A couple of months ago I hosted a large group of friends for an evening party, with this terribly lit room the only part of the house big enough to hold all of us. In a fit of desperate inspiration I gathered every track fixture we had in the whole house (the previous owners really liked track) and clustered them all together on that little 6' track. All together, there were about 400 watts worth of R20 & R30 incandescents and MR16 halogens. I pointed them all at the nearest wall and into the corners of adjacent walls, so they couldn't blind anyone, bouncing indirect light out into the room. The difference in light quality was profound -- so much so, that we haven't put any of the adopted track fixtures back where they "belong." When my wife is at home, she practically lives in that room now.

This experiment has shown me how profoundly different good lighting for a living space is, compared to a kitchen. In kitchens most of the light is typically direct downlighting, with bright countertops a primary goal. In less work-oriented spaces, indirect light is much more pleasant.

Whether you go for cans with eyeballs or wall-washer trims, or track lighting, I would look for ways to bounce light off the walls and ceiling. Based on my little experiment, I'd imagine you'd need at least 700 watts worth of incandescent / halogen fixtures to softly light a room that size, and you'd probably want to supplement it with additional fixtures for task / reading light.

Maybe a picture would help people comment on the lighting layout. We went to the store to look at track lighting and really didn't see anything that we felt would fit for the style of the room. Also a lot of the fixtures where inherently glare creating - you see the light from the side. So I guess we will use recessed cans.

The white circles (paper plates) on the floor represent spots we are thing of putting recessed lighting fixture over our island and in the family room. This is a picture from the corner of the kitchen area looking over where the island will be:
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The blue tape under the closest row of lights (paper plates) is where the edge of the island will run. The blue tape F insided the "island" represents where one corner of our hood will be. The exact postion isn't quite pinned down yet but the edge toward the family room will end somewhere between the two bars of the blue tape F. (The black pipe sticking up is the gas for the cooktop.) That row of lights would be on the family room side of the joist so if we want them more directly over the island they would have to move to the other side of the joist and I'm concerned they would be too close to the hood and create annoying glare.

The entertainment center will stay where it is on the far wall. The middle row of three plates will be over the area where the couch and chair are. That is where we want enough light for reading. These would be 3 six-inch incandescents on a dimmer.

The far two paper plates are two more incandescents on another dimmer just to provide some general illumination and to light an oriental rug that sits in front of the couch.

The wall you can't see to the left of the picture is almost entirely windows with a shaded western exposure. Does that look like it will be enough light?

Here is a view from the other corner of the kitchen:
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You're discovering what lighting designers learned a good 60 years ago - that indirect lighting makes for much more pleasant living spaces. One great development of the 1940s was fixtures that hung from the ceiling and reflected part or most of the light off of it.

I can't understand why can lights are popular. They give NO indirect light. Yes, it's nice that they conceal the source of light, but in so doing they create annoying pools of light and shadows. You can mitigate this only by using huge numbers of fixtures, which consume obscene amounts of electricity.

Cans are fine for accenting certain areas, but ANYTHING that hangs below the ceiling is better for creating an overall pleasant atmosphere. IMO, this is true for ALL rooms, including the kitchen.

I installed recessed lights once when I remodeled, and soon realized how dismal they are at general room lighting. Never again.

We ended up going with the recessed lights and direct lighting. I went to the lighting store to look at what was available in pendents and track type lighting and found that most would produce undesireable reflections on our screen. The few that wouldn't were not to our taste and didn't fit with our decor. We have indirect lighting in our living room and I find it doesn't provide as much light as I want for reading and I don't want to clutter the family room with supplemental task lighting.

Another issue was that we have 8 foot ceilings so anything that hangs down can't hang down very far or tall people will be bumping their heads. Our breakfast room has lighting that hangs down over the table. Now that the recessed lights are in I notice an optical illusion where the ceiling looks higher with the recessed lighting than it does with the breakfast room light from below and I like the higher look for the family room area.

The lights will be on dimmers so we can adjust the lighting in two zones. It is definately bright and not dismal with the lights on full.