Will this be smart light strips that you can program? I have several different smart lighting sources including strip lighting that is programmed to adjust to the color temperature outside and then adjusts into the evening with various sunset colors automatically. If that is the type of strip light we are talking about then I'm all for it. To have what appears to be sunlight coming through unseen sky lights is exhilarating during the day. Having a subtle undulating blue ceiling during a party can be great too. If you'd be stuck with an unadjustable single color temperature, I'd think twice about it for $4000.

I would not want this personally.

It's one color (2700k) warm LED strips, 300l/ft with a dimmer. Yeah, I think it's $4k I could really use for something else that's more important to me!

Agree with not wanting this personally - recessed lights on dimmers and table/floor lamps are sufficient in my 25’ x 37’ family room with varying ceiling heights of 8’-15’.

You can always add a strip light up there as long as there's an electrical plug added somewhere. My plug is hidden in my cove... just out of sight.

I have a slightly larger space with 12 ft ceilings and beams ... not once have I wished I had added strip lights! I'm assuming you have plenty of lights planned out for the space. I have recessed lights, chandeliers and lamps.

In my previous house I added strip lights above the kitchen cabinets, where the ceiling was vaulted. Sure, it filled in some of the shadows at night, but we never bothered to turn them on. It didn't really make a difference to the overall feel of the space.

I think strip lighting might look strange. It's not usually uniform and might appear blotchy across the top of the soffit. We had a soffit-like covering for shades, and it would've looked odd, I think to have strip LED's on top of it (see attached image of a former house). My suggestion is to pick a wall or two and put some cool art there and then have angled downlights (cans) from the ceiling or similar pointing at the art at a 45 or so degree angle. One can see the soffit beyond the DR table in the image. Other automated solar shades were built into the wall - like the big bank of doors/windows to the right. Let me know if you want closeups for ideas?

Yes, smart strip lights changed all that. I haven't done the wiring yet but I built in these slots here and there in the ceilings for strip lights, for a sunlight leakage effect. You'd swear there was a sky light somewhere. An unseen light source will highlight texture as well as give a feeling of connection to the outdoors if the color temperature is adjustable. I just set a schedule or routine and it does it on its own.

I've been playing around with this strip light. I put it in a deeper aluminum track to see what a sharp edge lighting effect might look like. I'm used to more of a smooth gradation of light but I'll wait until I get the center light before I decide. No blotches here.

I agree that LED lights have come a long way - I would put in an outlet for future - but wy be locked into a color range and 2700 is quite warm. It might work for your house - but I think you should have options.

Don't do it now - find a person later and have the electrical done.

IMO the fake beams are all you need to highlight the ceiling . You can add tape lighting any time it is very easy to do and so wait to see if you need it . All you need is plugs and those should be there after all the elcetrical is done and oof course LED I agree 2700K really yellow .

Agree with above - seems like an expensive thing to do when you’re not certain you’ll use it or enioy it - lovely room BTW!

We have indirect lighting using tape strips. It's a very soothing overall light. No glare on TV or devices

I have worked in two different environments where All the ambient lighting was hidden cove lighting or lighting bounced off the ceiling from the tops of built-ins/workstations, no recessed lighting visible at all.

And they are very pleasant environments to work in. I could see a great room being very nice with hidden ambient lighting and then table or floor lamps.

I also think that there is nothing wrong with something dimming down to 2700 or something very warm. There is a reason why people enjoy firelight and candle light and eating in restaurants with dim lighting. A living or dining room is not a work place, you don't necessarily want to be stimulated by bright white lighting all the time.

I actually like the bulbs that dim AND warm when doing so! It mimics evening light. I feel like LED strips will ultimately get there. But I don't want 2700 in my daylight working mode. Prefer about 3500 ideally.

The backlash against technology is a real thing. Just when lighting fixtures can be flat or so small that they are almost invisible the designers are all...

I almost spit my coffee out when I saw her sitting under that.

Well there is really nothing duller than a room with no ornamental lighting in it at all, even if technically it's not necessary.

I agree, however, throwing all rules of proportion out the window just when light fixtures can be much smaller is surprising.

We have a vaulted great room with t&g wood, structural rafters and an exposed steel beam, and have uplighting and use it all the time. We use it especially as a soft light in the space when we're not actually in the room at night. I'll try to find a picture. :)

Not at that stage yet.

One half of the 60' long breakfast room, kitchen, family room.

But for the long high open spaces, we will be trying to avoid direct downlighting as much as possible. In previous builds I did up to 120 pots just because buyers expected them. Like bragging about your car's horsepower!

I have a lot of art so I did gimbaled recessed near walls. Lighting a room by reflecting it off white walls is beautiful.

@worthy re: second picture

Although I have linear LED lighting fixtures in my bathroom, and tapes under my kitchen cabinets, I have some concerns about the mud-in style fixtures, because if something goes wrong you are tearing out things spackled into slots in the drywall. I know a number of people who have had issues with flickering wafer lights, although realistically the builder probably spec'd the cheapest light available.

With Integrated Linear LED lighting, most experience I have with seeing this is in exterior commercial environments, and one of the buildings was probably an early adaptor, but within a year most of it was non-functional. There are bits and pieces of it that still light up. I worry about the irreversibility of it. It reminds me of the FLW house with integral lighting where they had to break the glass on the fixture when the bulb burnt out because there was no way to change it.

I used a mud-in track in a difficult to light kitchen under some stairs. You buy the track, mud it in after running a low voltage cable to it... then you buy the light strip to attach to it. If the strip burns out, you pop off the diffuser and change it. No reason to ever rip out a track.

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And here I thought servicing lights in the 23' high entry area would be the biggest concern!

Ah, it's been a while since I looked. That makes sense that it would be components. I saw some things that didn't really come apart, but they were shorter. A room sized installation would have to be components and it would make no sense for the diffusers to not come back out--I wasn't really thinking about that.

It's so helpful to get these different viewpoints! I can see there's a situation in which it might be really nice to have that indirect lighting. The builder is going to leave the wiring in place in case we want to add it later.

I personally don't love working under recessed downlights except in the kitchen. I think in the other rooms I'll be more likely to use floor lamps and pendants and leave the recessed lights off a lot of the time.

I'm very sensitive to bright white LEDs, so pretty much everything in the house is 2700k, but that has no impact on lumens unless you're using dim-to-warm. We will have some very bright lights that start warm and stay there, and everything is on dimmer.

We have a vaulted ceiling with uplighting on the beams. 95% of the time I only use the uplighting and lamps.