My husband and I bought an apartment in a high-rise with a concrete ceilings and we are the process of renovation. We plan to convert one of the bedrooms into an office, but the issue is that bedrooms have no ceiling lights.

Our electrician installed plastic wiremold and run power cables through it from the drywall to the center of the room where he installed round circular fixture box. This solves the problem but I can’t say I love the look of the plastic 6ft long wiremold on the ceiling.

After talking to a painting company they told me that when painting a ceiling they add about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick layer of mud and suggested that we glue the cables directly to the concrete ceiling and they can cover them up with mud so the ceiling would be completely flat. They explained this would require thinner cables (18 awg) than what is currently installed (14 awg) and a linear fuse in the drywall. We plan to install ceiling light with with 5 Philips Hue bulbs (all low consumption, LED based) and total length of the wire would be 6ft so they said 18 awg wire should be more than enough to provide the needed power.

I really like the idea of the flat ceiling but I do have some concernes. I am mostly concerned with how safe this is. Are there any other downsides to this solution? Has anyone done someone thing similar?