In a living room I prefer to light the walls and avoid light on the tops of heads so I use adjustable spots and wall-washers near the walls. They do basically the same thing but the spot puts a spot of light on the wall and the wall-washer puts a wider diffused light on the wall.

General lighting in the center of the living room can be decorative ceiling fixtures and possibly some additional downlights (non-adjustable recessed lights) on a separate switch depending on your opinion of overhead vs decorative ceiling vs table top lighting. A pin spot is useful over a dining table or kitchen island to provide a narrow beam from a small ceiling opening to light only the surface of the table or island. The smaller the light beam the closer the fixtures are usually spaced which increases the cost,

The light quality will be determined by the lamp (bulb) type: LED or low vs line voltage incandescent and the lamp shape. "A" lamps (standard light bulb shape) and similar shapes may need an internal reflector in the fixture but other shapes have a reflector in the lamp. I don't use fluorescent lamps in any location.

Lights that are deeply recessed into the ceiling fixture can produce a reflection on the exposed trim so that part of the trim can be shiny, defuse, matte or baffled (ringed grooves) to produce different effects. There's no limit to the kinds of opening trim, even copper, bronze and square.

A warm light for LED is 2700K (warm) to 3000K (a bit cooler) and incandescent halogen light tend to be warm anyway but with some variation and you have a choice of low vs line voltage (the former containing a small transformer and projecting a strong beam).

To complicate the issue further, an LED fixture requires a "driver" (like a transformer) built into the fixture or it can be a "retrofit" fixture with a small driver built into a lamp (bulb) or a replacement LED unit that is placed into a new or old incandescent fixture. This approach is the cheapest and therefore the most commonly offered by consumer stores and electricians. I don't recommend this approach for shower lights or any recessed light with an enclosed lamp.

This a very rough and incomplete overview of recessed lighting. If this is all new to you, you should consider getting help from a designer. Many lighting stores offer different levels of assistance from free advice from a knowledgable sales person to an independent lighting consultant for a fee.

Recessed lighting is an effective way to control and adjust the amount of light you need in a particular space. Unlike ordinary lighting, recessed lighting can be used to focus on a certain area. Much of this is achieved through the internal construction of the recessed light cans and the trims fixed at the outer edge of the cans. Now, to understand what type of trim — baffle or reflector -- would be best for reading purposes, we need to understand which of them would give more light. We must realize that for a comfortable reading experience, we need a sufficient amount of light. Although there are many types of trims, baffle & reflector are more common, so I am talking about these two.

Baffle Trims

Baffle trims are preferred in households because of their ability to absorb glare and excess light. This happens because of the ribbed interior, which is designed to trap light rays coming towards it, of the can that houses the bulb. Most other surfaces would reflect the light back but in baffle trims, this is not meant to be so. The light that finally enters our space is soft and moderate. It does not hurt the eyes. It creates a pleasant and soothing environment with just enough light. This may not be a good source of light for purposes. You can find out more here.

Reflector Trims

In many ways, reflector trims are just the opposite of baffle trims. They have no ribbed interior in the recessed light cans. On the contrary, reflector trims’ interior is highly smooth and polished that reflects back most of the light emanating from the bulb towards it. Reflector trims result in a higher supply of light in any given area. This is especially good for commercial settings but can also be used in that part of the household where the light needs to maximized such as kitchen and study.

Reflector trims would supply more light than baffle trims. So for reading purposes, reflector trims are more effective.

To select lighting fixtures and trims, one must have a clear idea of the purpose for which the lighting fixture is desired--overall ambient lighting, feature lighting and/or task lighting.

So...how will these fixtures be used in the living room?

Unless you are talking about an A or BT lamp that needs a reflector in a recessed fixture, lamps in a typical recessed downlight are spots or floods with an internal reflector in the lamp (R, BR, PAR, MR, etc.) so the trim has little effect on the light that leaves the fixture other than to increase or decrease the amount of glare from the trim ring that is visible from across the room.

Therefore, the choice of trims for such lamps depends more on how you want the fixture to appears in the ceiling. A grooved black or white baffle (coilex) trim or a deffused cone (low reflectance) trim can reduce the glare from the trim ring but the more important issue is how deeply the lamp is recessed in the fixture because the glare off a trim ring is never as strong as the glare from a bare lamp that is low enough in the fixture to be visible from across the room.

For a deeply recessed lamp, when you get close enough to see the lamp, the fixture should no longer be in your normal field of vision (in other words, you would need to look up to see it). For that to occur with a 4 inch fixture, the recess of the lamp should be about 1 1/4 inches. That is the first thing I would look for in a typical recessed downlight. Of course, these considerations don't usually apply to specialty trims like pin spots, eyeballs, gimbal rings, wall-washers and enclosed shower lights.

So, first decide what you want the light to do (light a wall, a work surface, a shower or provide a dramatic accent or general downlighting). then decide on how you want it to appear in the ceiling (deeply recessed, baffled, defuse reflector, bright reflector, black, white, silver, copper, bronze, round, square, pin hole, gimbal ring, lensed, etc.). Then choose a lamp type (R, BR, PAR, MR/GU, etc.) and then choose the kind of light (LED or Halogen) (halogen can be line or low voltage) and if it is integral to the fixture or uses a separate lamp (retrofit) and then choose the housing (air-tight/insulation contact or not).

But when you have a good idea of what you want the light to do and how it should appear in the ceiling its best to go to a lighting store or electrical supply house and ask to see a few fixtures that meet your requirements in their display and compare them to the others by switching back and forth and dimming them. For LED fixtures ask which dimmers should be used. Avoid Home Depot and Lowes for fixtures and lamps.

The things I would avoid are A & BT lamps, any fluorescent lamp, eyeballs and any downlight where the light source is recessed less than 1 1/4".

My current favorite fixture is the 3 1/2" integral LED Lytecaster L3 series from Lightolierwith a white baffle & white flange or a diffused cone & white flange. I prefer the diffused cone but it costs more.

I should point out that the term "reflector trim" is a bit of a misnomer since almost all 4" recessed lighting uses reflector lamps and true reflector trim kits are for certain kinds of wall-washer models that redirect the light beam or lensed shower lights. The more appropriate term for the part of the trim that is visible around the lamp is aperture "cone" or "baffle" but sometimes "reflector cone" is still used but even if the cone is polished metal, its not really acting as a reflector like in the old fixtures designed for A-lamps (standard light bulb shape). These polished cone fixtures only create a bright spot at the ceiling by reflecting a small portion of the light into your eyes.

By the way, the spec sheets for each recessed light tells you what lamp (bulb) can be put in the fixture and housing combination. The reason for this information is that larger wattage or different type of lamps may overheat the fixture and trip the thermal cut-off switch causing the light to cycle on and off. So its important to read these documents before selecting the fixture. Some manufacturers must reduce the wattage of the lamp in fixtures that will be rated for insulation contact and/or air-tightness (IC) leaving you with a low output light or a spot light with an extender that puts the amp below the ceiling (very annoying). I have found this to be the case for certain Halo fixtures and therefore avoid that brand even though many of the models are fine. the issue is mad far worse since the manufacturers stopped publishing manuals forcing designers and consumers alike to search the internet where the most important information is hard to find. To avoid such pitfalls I keep coming back to Lightolier Lytecaster. At least there are no surprises in the field.