soft or hard? pictures would sure help.

From the rule book Lighting in Kitchens. A minimum of 50 percent of the total rated wattage of permanently installed lighting in kitchens shall be high efficacy. EXCEPTION to Section 150(k)8: Up to 50 watts for dwelling units less than or equal to 2,500 ft2 or 100 watts for dwelling units larger than 2,500 ft2 may be exempt from the 50 percent high efficacy requirement when the following conditions are met: A. All low efficacy luminaires in the kitchen are controlled by a manual-on occupant sensor, dimmer, energy management control system (EMCS), or a multi-scene programmable control system; and B. All permanently installed luminaires in garages, laundry rooms, closets greater than 70 square feet, and utility rooms are high efficacy and are controlled by a manual-on occupant sensor. NOTE: For the purpose of this requirement, kitchen lighting includes all permanently installed lighting in the kitchen except for lighting that is internal to cabinets for the purpose of illuminating only the inside of the cabinets. Lighting in areas adjacent to the kitchen, including but not limited to dining and nook areas, are considered kitchen lighting if they are not separately switched from kitchen lighting. 9. Lighting internal to cabinets. Permanently installed lighting that is internal to cabinets shall use no more than 20 watts of power per linear foot of illuminated cabinet. From the Cree LR6 product sheet TestedandcertifiedtoULstandards.Suitablefordamplocations.  UtilizeGU-24basefornewconstructionprojectsinCaliforniaor otherareas wherehighefficacylinevoltagesocketsarerequired.  ExceedsCaliforniaTitle-24highefficacyluminairerequirements.  ENERGYSTAR®qualifiedSolid-StateLightingLuminaire. HTH Here is a link that might be useful: Title 24

A lot of home theater specialists are jokes just as an electrician that claims to be one but is not really. A well rounded electrician would be best, one guy taking care of everything and integrating it together. Have to check out their website or research products they want to use, might check some references too. The price goes up with better quality in control and extra wiring for flexibility. For example my friends Electrical/AV business bid $60k on a 2 mill house for having distributed high def, audio, and everything. A big chain store bid against him at about $1,000 plus some equipment and tv's. At finish, nothing worked and the TVs only received standard cable TV. Turns out each place had only 1 cat5 wire or 1 cable TV wire, often running to complete random places. My friends business got called in to give them a bid to fix, post sheetrock. Going up $20k in price from his last bid, they had to settle with rigging the wiring together and using basic universal remotes. If you want control of all aspects, check out the website for Elan home systems, they can locate a dealer. It integrates nicely with several brands of alarms, t-stats, ipod, lutron lighting. They have a basic touchpad with an LCD screen that tells you what is happening. Also a full touch screen that can view cameras, have lots of buttons, and even watch TV on the screen itself. I use it in my own home and haven't found much it can not do. Adding the alarm system I just installed to it only involves adding a re-made driver to the touchpad/screen programming. The stuff is not cheap at retail, ($1,000 touch screen, $350 touch pad, $1000 radio tuner, $600 Ipod dock, $1,000 6 zone switcher/ amp) But it is serious stuff that will not be screwing up and breaking. For lights, if your A/V company is not already an electrician. Make sure to find an electrician that offers lighting control and that it is compatible with the A/V company you chose. It is often not good to have someone else come in to put lighting control on the other electricians wiring. Especially if you homerun lights to a control panel instead of conventional switch boxes. A very basic, lowest bidder would say, "Huhhh... we can't run the lights all the way there..." Just check what your getting. Telling someone you want sound in those rooms could result in them popping in an A-bus keypad that only does volume and sounds like crap with being powered by cat5.

Sorry to hear about your situation. Given the current economic conditions and it's impact on the trades, one would think that most electricians would be willing to kiss your behind. 1. By amalgamation a presume the plan is to combine lesser used circuits to free up space in the panel. The code is pretty clear on requirements for kitchens and baths, so I don't know if you have enough low amp circuits to combine things. As soon as you start playing with those circuits, you may be required to bring them up to current code as well. Which might include things like expensive arc fault breakers. It may be cheaper and more efficient to simply add a small sub-panel. 2. 20 amp circuits are typically served by 12 gauge wire or cable unless you have a long run to the service panel. Not sure about "special" cable. Perhaps he means flexible metal cable for protection against physical damage? I'm not sure the code actually requires it but rather requires NM to be protected against damage. There may be a way to accomplish the physical protection without running new cable. 3. Receptacles for the dishwasher and disposal are usually located under the sink. The range receptacle behind the range. Wall ovens are typically hardwired. 4. Lamp cord is not approved for in wall use although that rule seems to be frequently broken for undercabinet lighting. My recommendation is to use line voltage fixtures and the appropriate wiring methods. It's really not that hard to install undercabinet lighting neatly and properly although it will be more labor intensive. 5. A switch makes a lot of sense for a disposal. :-) Although there are air switches that can be mounted by the sink to eliminate the need for a wall switch.