Look up invisible speakers. They can be installed in ceilings or walls. They are flush with the sheetrock and then get skimmed/painted/wallpapered over so they blend in with the wall/ceiling. I've seen them installed at an audio/video showroom and they were "invisible" and the sound was really good. They are more expensive than typical in-wall speakers with a grills.

There are "invisible" speakers such as the Sonance IS6 but at $2000/pair with a very difficult installation procedure you might want to consider something else.

Here are a few in-ceiling speakers at several price points that reviewers and owners liked:

• Bose Virtually Invisible 591
• Klipsch CDT-5650-C II
• Micca M-8C

The grills would be visible but you could paint them to match the ceiling.

I'd say two in the dining room and two in the kitchen would be enough. Remember that you'll have to run wires from the speakers to wherever your amplifier/receiver is. I'd recommend you be able to turn the speaker pairs on and off separately.

Of course, you can also put speakers inside a wall. The speakers might sound better because they'd be closer to the listener's ear height, the stereo "image" would be better and, of course, they'd be easier to install. However, walls are shallow so you must choose a speaker whose depth will allow it to fit. The Micca M-8S is an in-wall model. Klipsch also makes in-wall speakers.

Know that chances are no one will notice or care about what speakers in the ceiling look like, unless they are an architect.

As said by Mark, I don't think anyone would notice. The coffer will actually help disguise the recessed lights and the speakers. We are building and will have a coffered ceiling through the entire great room (family room and kitchen.) I've not given our ceiling much thought other than to make sure everything is in symmetry.

In the family room, we are not using recessed lights in the coffers except for an eyeball pointed toward the FP mantle (in gray). We prefer natural light and lamp lighting. We will have a centered fan, but no lights on that.

We also have two bump out areas. One houses a large group of bookshelves that stretch across one end of the room. There will be 4" recessed lights over the bookcases (in gray). The other bump-out will have an entertainment credenza with our T.V. mounted on the wall above. There will be 4" recessed lights over this area (in gray). The kitchen area will have recessed cans in the outer coffered boxes, and two hanging lights over the middle island. I did not include the whole kitchen layout in this attachment.

Our in ceiling speakers are located in the coffers on either side of the middle (see in yellow.)

The hidden speakers are amazing and priced accordingly. I would get standard speakers, align them in a straight line with the lights, and never think about it again. Make sure to paint the speaker trim (not the grill) with your ceiling white otherwise the plastic will yellow and draw your eye.

You should do a mockup on the ceiling. We have a tic tac toe grid in our current house. We laid out the recessed lights, speakers and sprinkler heads in rows, with the lights in the center of the grid and the sprinkler/speakers offset. You don't really notice them - especially if you paint the speaker covers to match the ceiling.

Don't forget your HVAC vents as well.

BTW, the tic tac toe layout provides the most restrictions on where you can place things as if things aren't centered it looks wrong. In our new build we ended up going for a horizontal beam layout as it gave us more options for placing recessed lights as there were some large structural beams preventing the tic tac toe from working w/recessed lights.