Recommend living room wall lights

[MrChips]

Morning all,

We're just starting to redecorate our new house, only cosmetics, but we're a bit stumped on what to do with the light fittings in the living room. The whole room is currently magnolia with beige carpet, but will eventually be a mid-light grey/stone colour, with oak flooring. Ignore the furniture in the pic as this is being changed as well. There are no ceiling lights which is fine, and we rarely use the wall lights as we have 3 side lamps around the room.

However i'm still struggling to find some wall lights that I think will work, partly due to the high positioning possibly ruling out some up/down lighters? I guess it shouldn't be too costly a job to lower them a bit?

Here's the current fittings.





Anyone installed wall lights recently and care to share their thoughts? I was thinking maybe these type, possibly painted in the same colour as the wall?


Or something like this, although i'm worried the light will be a bit harsh seeing as they are mounted so high up the wall:

[MrChips]

I quite like that Astro Amalfi one, however nothing's really inspiring is it

We're planning on staying in this house for a very long time so i'm happy to pay to get something special, however it's also quite likely that we will reconfigure the downstairs and part of the lounge will become the kitchen/diner in a few years time.

How difficult/expensive is it likely to be to install some spotlights in the ceiling given we have no fittings in there currently?

Something a bit like this?

[MrChips]

Cactussed said:

We had the same dilemma.

I ended up doing something identical to this.

http://www.houzz.co.uk/photos/80151/friend-modern-...

Edited by Cactussed on Monday 25th July 13:22

Nice! I guess a fair bit of work though! Do you mind me asking a ballpark figure on how much this set you back? Any pics of the final result?

I think the difficult thing is that eventually we want to reconfigure the layout downstairs but that's probably at least 5yrs off at the mo so it's a balance between spending now and saving for the extension.
I guess if I did spotlights now then that wouldn't be a total waste as we could use them in the new layout although I suspect they'd need to be moved.

[MrChips]

Right, decisions been made... we're going to go for downlights rather than keep the wall lights. Electrician coming on Friday to quote.
Any ideas on a likely cost to install around 8 downlighters? I know that Guy's ZEP1's are well regarded on here, but are there others to consider? We generally don't use the main lights very often but if we're going with downlights then i think we'd like them to be dimmable if possible, and possibly a slight amount of directional movement so we can use to highlight the walls.

Here's a similar pic to our lounge but with downlights. Seems nice, if a little boring so but i'm just starting to research what pattern/placement would work well.

[MrChips]

olimain said:

I'm not a lover of downlights other than in kitchens / bathrooms - feel they're a bit clinical but have just installed 4 of those Asto Milo wall lights you posted in a couple of bedrooms and they look excellent when painted in. Lovely light cast from the top and bottom.

Any pics you could share? I'd not thought about painting them to blend with the wall.

[MrChips]

Just to update this with some results... ditched the wall lights and sorted the walls, repainted in F&B Ammonite, then installed some of Guy's ZEP6 Darklights. We're over the moon with it. The darklights especially as they have exactly the right feel for a lounge, and no glare at all due to the design and black inner coating. We have 12 of the 10w versions, situated all 35cm from the walls with none in the middle and there's plenty of light. They dim really nicely too..Thoroughly recommended!