Q:What type of ceiling lights should I use for a 20-foot-high family room that has very little wall space and a floor-to-ceiling fireplace? Right now there are 6-inch recessed cans in the ceiling.
A: I keep thinking about your statement “very little wall space.” You have 20-foot ceilings, which means you have four 20-foot-high walls. In my mind, I'm imagining all the things that are covering these huge walls! Even if you have 9-foot-high door openings, that still leaves 11 feet of space above. The idea of such a high ceiling is quite luxurious.
If it was my house, I would put in another floor and have two levels with 10-foot ceilings, but that’s just me as a look around at my diminutive 8-foot-high ceilings.I'm going to guess that this is a large rectangular room. Nobody’s going to have a 12-foot-square room with 20 foot ceilings. I would have you think about hanging 2-4, chandeliers or pendants in the space to create a secondary ceiling line. This will help humanize the scale of the space. You could also install box beams running from wall to wall, perpendicular to the longer side. These would be installed about 14 feet above the floor. They could have indirect LED linear lighting on top create a gentle glow of light for the room.
I’m also guessing that the existing recessed fixtures are fixed downlights. I would retrim them or replace them with adjustable versions so that the illumination can be directed towards tabletops, plants or whatever amazing collection you have filling all the walls. I would recommend using an LED bulb with a tight beam spread so that it can reach from the ceiling all the way to the floor area. You can add additional recessed fixtures, depending on how many things need illumination.
It would also be nice to wash the fireplace façade with accent light so that it has some visual energy even when there isn't a fire going. A good addition would be to add table lamps and floor lamps to create little islands of illumination that draw people into the room.
