Lighting recommendation

So are you saying the current ground floor ceiling is completely solid?

You probably need to lower the ceiling by about 4" to be able to fit flush fitting halogen downlighters

From what I've read up, LED lighting isn't really up to it yet; just too dim.

What about surface-mounted halogen spots, like

David

It's solid but it's got some horrid sort of 70s ceiling tiles glued to it. They really need to come down!

Thanks. Are you suggesting I mount these on the wall? It will certainly look better than what's there now, but not really what I'm after. The ceiling is about 6'9" from the floor, so if I take a couple of inches for the pipes + the thickness of the plasterboard that brings us to

Can't you just mount fluorescents above the plasterboard with some translucent material flush with the ceiling to act as a diffuser? I'd have thought a few circular tubes could be mounted direct to the existing ceiling with spring-clips.

Could you lower most of the ceiling by 2" you suggest but an area of say 1' all around the perimiter by 4", then the downlighters will go near the walls and shine on to them. Halo downlighters look really effective shining off light coloured walls!

Various options:

trough lighting, this is done with long fully concealed fl tubes running along the top corner. Important to use a dimmable electronic ballast to avoid flicker, and good quality tubes. Some fl tubes look awful, some so-so, and some are very good. 3500K is a good low cost halophosphate tube, triphoshors in the 2700-3500K region are better but more money. Avoid 4100K, 4500K tubes, or higher, and cool white, theyre the horrid ones.

table lamps

floor standing uplighter

fl lights recessed into the ceiling

cfls downlighters: its poss to make these very low profile, with no room for vent needed above.Separate bulb and ballast, and make your own bulb enclosure, sitting the ballast next to it on the PB.

Forget LEDs, theyre all hype.

NT