I seem to be past the editing deadline…I see the configuration of the two “rooms” one passes through to the living room to be the major issue with this house.
Maybe something pretty unobtrusive would be the right choice for over the front door. How about one of these - they are budget friendly, too: http://www.homedepot.com/p/EnviroLite-Low-Profile-LED-16-in-Flush-Mount-Ceiling-Brushed-Nickel-White-Lighting-Fixture-EV1416LED-BN/206281916
For the master bedroom, since there isn’t any ceiling wiring, could you make use of the wiring in the wall to install two sconces to be controlled by the switch? If not hardwired sconces, would you consider swing-arm lamps?
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-Novello-Collection-2-Light-Chrome-Wall-Sconce-25612-011/204324751
I’m guessing you’d use LED bulbs instead of incandescent, too.
I don’t remember the bedroom walls…but if there is any chance there is a second spot for,the bed…don’t use sconces.
I also vote for no need for a WOW chandelier. I’m not a big fan of chandeliers…at all. It would not be missed if I were looking at this house.
It would be one thing if you had a formal dining room, or a two story foyer…but really, I would not want a chandelier in my bedroom.
I love love love the sconces in the links above. They are all lovely, although a little expensive. The issue with putting sconces on the wall is that I would have to permanently guess where the buyer’s bed will be located. I have swing arm sconces in my own bedroom with separate switches for each side so they can be turned on/off from the bed. I love them. But, it is too dangerous to guess where buyers would want them located AND I don’t want to tear up the walls in master bedroom right now - have too much other electrical work going on all over the place between staircase area and downstairs.
In fact, I just realized that I cannot close up the shear walls downstairs with plywood because we might need wiring in them for some outlets - dang chicken and egg thing. We cannot start mounting the giant 2 x 8 ceiling joists for the drop ceiling (to cover up all the ducting, wiring and sewer lines in ceiling area) until we get the plywood on the shear walls. We cannot raise our interior non bearing walls until the ceiling joists are installed. Cannot install ceiling joist hangers until shear walls get up, cannot install shear walls until electrical wiring is run inside the walls, if needed.
I like the sconces in that post as well…but not if there is more than one choice for bed placement…and it sounds like there is.
But to be honest, I like the idea of a chandelier in my bedroom even less.
I still like our recessed lights in the bedroom - 4, one in each corner. Who cares if they are out of fashion? Convenience is important to me! I flip the wall switch by the door
and dont have to stumble in the dark to get around. We retrofitted them with LED inserts. We also have touch-on lamps on nightstands by the bed. No switches - love it.
I wouldn’t want a chandelier in the bedroom, but I do like some sort of overhead lighting. Flip the switch the light goes on. I don’t want a switched outlet for the nightstands, we use those for reading.
@Mom2M The switched outlets in our rooms have one receptacle which is switched…and the other is not. Plus, you can still turn the light off from your bed even if on the switched receptacle.
Sounds like a great set up, thumper1. Our house is just not set up that way. Of course, turning them off is always an option.
I have an overhead light in my bedroom. While it’s nice to be able to turn on the light from the door, it is irritating to have to go in, turn on the bedside lamp, and then go back and turn off the overhead. Thumper’s setup sounds ideal.
How about these for your entrance or dining area:
I like the more fanciful light fixtures. 
This would definitely add wow-factor to the living room!
http://www.allmodern.com/Foscarini-Fields-Wall-Sconce-174005-63-FOS1212.html
We have no overhead lights in any of our bedrooms. It’s fine. We have lamps where we want them. There are some pretty neat looking floor/reading lamps these days if you don’t want or use a night stand.
I only like overhead lights in my breakfast room, and dining room…over the tables. Personal preference!
In those two cases, I have replaced the over table lights that came with our houses with ones I chose myself. I wouldn’t want a “wow” chandelier unless it was totally my choice and taste.
It is easy to wire lights in a way that there would be multiple switches for the same fixture. Our stairs have pass through lights that can be turned on/off by two switches at the bottom and at the top. The biggest issue is where to locate the fixture and the switches if it is a room like bedroom where furniture placement dictates the light placement.
“This would definitely add wow-factor to the living room!”
Wow. It definitely added wow-factor to my face! My jaw dropped when I saw the price. But I agree - what a cool sconce.
I didn’t consider that bed placement would be a concern (I assumed king bed and only one possible location), but that makes sense. Where we live, it’s required to have at least one light operated by a switch in each room and they’re supposed to be “installed” but some inspectors will allow plug-in lights (sconces and swags.) What if you hung two swag lights in the master, connected to a wall switch, above whatever is the most likely location of the future owner’s nightstands? It would be easy enough for a buyer to move (or remove) the swag hook later, and in the meantime you’ll have light there. Here are some possibilities that are budget friendly:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Hampton-Bay-Carroll-1-Light-Brushed-Nickel-Swag-Drum-Pendant-ES4763SBA-D/204280126
I prefer the one from Lamps Plus. They offer a bunch more shade options as well.
I think the likelihood would be that they would just get rid of them after moving in. 
But they could be used for staging…
Consolation, you’re probably right about the buyers removing them. I’ve installed half a dozen fixtures in several houses just to make our inspectors happy, then replaced them as soon as the job was officially finished. The last time, an inspector called me out on it because the finish of the temporary fixture was different from the others. I just smiled and said I like mixed metals. He’d insisted on a closed flush mount fixture in closets that have 11’ ceilings where there was no way that the heat from the fixtures I’d originally chosen would ever come near any fabric and when he knew I was using LED bulbs (low temp) anyway.
I really like the idea of dropping two swag drum pendants down on each side of the bed - and having them turned on at the switch. The inspector is technically not supposed to be rummaging around upstairs in the existing rooms - so I don’t think I have any lighting or Title 24 requirements. Just by luck I found bathroom lighting that is LED so that should pass code without requiring the occupancy sensor thing. And my exterior lighting is LED so I don’t have to go through that nonsense.
I think the issue might be which outlet is connected to the switch. Since the switches are all torn out of the wall because we are rewiring the staircase area, I will have to see which outlet(s) is on the switch. There are overhead lights on the entry switch in the other two bedrooms upstairs.
Downstairs I have some leeway to wire the lighting however I want. I think that I will give some thought to 3-way switches. Lights can be turned as you walk in or out of door, but you can also turn the light off with a switch next to the bed.
Meanwhile… back to reality which involves plywood, nails and wiring - not glamorous. Started the morning by delivering the living area wall paint that I had agonized over all weekend. Of course, very first swatch and it just looked like boring milk toast in the big room. It looked OK in the darker entry area… so we painted that area only.
Run downstairs and we do some emergency wiring through the shear wall areas. My job is to nail in the blue boxes where I want to have outlets and switches that might land behind the plywood areas. Then I get the electrician on the phone and explain that we have no choice but to do the wiring ourselves. He talks me through what he wants and we start drilling holes through studs and running wire everywhere. Hope 4 outlets can be on the same circuit!! That’s the only part I don’t really get.
Back upstairs and I grab one of the 5 gallon drums of wimpy paint and run off to Home Depot. I work with the guy to make a really good color - medium grey tone. Run it back and we get it on the wall and it is way too too dark, but it looks good in the Master Bedroom. I tell them to paint up the Master Bedroom with it. Meanwhile, I am a mad scientist mixing the wimpy paint with the dark paint and come up with a gorgeous creation - well, at least in my mind it’s nice Now we have 6 colors painted upstairs that I am going to have to label very carefully and keep track of. I always try very hard to leave touch up paint for buyers, clearly labeled.
Bedrooms and Hallway - leftover paint from another job which is Frazee Chopstick
Hall bath - White Semi Gloss
Trim - White Semi Gloss
Master Bath - Swiss Coffee semi gloss
Kitchen ceiling - Swiss Coffee Semi Gloss
Ceilings - white Ceiling Paint
Entry room - Weathered White
Master Bedroom - Cotton Grey (really a custom mix from Home Depot that I made)
Living Area and part of kitchen - Custom mix 2/3 weathered white and 1/3 cotton grey
Leftovers are going to get used to paint areas downstairs - probably the custom mix needs to go down the staircase
Then back downstairs so that we can measure and outline the bedroom window into the exact right place before we frame. The guys had marked it, setting it halfway between the two walls on west side of room. But, they forgot that there is a closet on the family room side of the wall and the window was not marked in the correct place. I had to do some rough measurements to get it moved to the right place.
Spent about an hour with carpenter making sure we totally understand all of the fastener requirements for big ledger boards that have to be installed to hang the drop ceiling.
Then, off to Home Depot with my final interior door order because they were having a sale - I needed to get them all ordered before Tuesday when the 15% off expires. I ordered some cool interior doors and ordered matching doors for the closet doors in the house. I cannot find it on the Masonite website with a good picture - it has horizontal lines which goes with the contemporary theme.
Get back just as the guys are closing up. We took the garage door and opener mechanisms down and we have a wide gaping framed hole on the north side of downstairs area. The guys have to spend about a 1/2 hour screwing on plywood and they pick up the entire old heavy garage door and screw it over opening. After all this, my carpenter remembers he forgot his cell phone inside and they have to dismantle an area - he climbs through a hole and back out.
Then I get an alert that my business account is overdrawn… Ooops… rush home to start working on that problem
Photos loaded
Yesterday was kitchen countertop installation which is always exciting for me. Things are starting to come together. Unfortunately the pieces that were picked up at the new place were not plumb or square. There was a lot of shimming countertops up, recutting, grinding and fabrication that had to take place on site.
They arrived at about 11am with the pre cut lengths and waterfall cuts. We were all still there until 8pm and they did not finish all the details. I felt really sorry for the guys because it was not their fault that the pieces were out of square and needed a lot of fabrication. But I did tell them that the next time they pick up, they need to measure the ‘pre fab’ pieces to make sure they were acceptable, instead of fighting all the issues later during the installation.
Man, everything in the little one car garage (where they were cutting and grinding), inside the house and all over our persons were covered in a lot of quartz dust!
Photos loaded, but I’m not sure they are doing it justice. The countertop is the perfect pale brown/grey tones to go with cabinetry and kitchen.