IMHO, no recessed lighting in the Dining Room....a chandelier is much nicer and more appropriate. If it's an informal DR, then get an "informal" chandelier.

We have both in our dining room (chandelier and recessed), it opens onto the kitchen and the living room (where I also put recessed). Probably a decorating no no, but we put smaller cans (4 inch) in and only on the perimeter of those rooms, and they are on dimmers and I love how they look and they don't detract from my chandelier at all, at least I don't think so.

Our house is being remodeled so the pictures show burned out bulbs and a huge mess, but at least you can see the recessed with the chandelier and the fan. It may not be the proper way to do things, but I love having the recessed when we entertain, and we can turn them way down when we want to watch a movie in the living room so you can make it feel like a theater. We have much less room in this house than in our old one, so no place is formal even if I do have formal furnishings in the dining room, we just couldn't afford to have a museum for fine furniture like we did in our old house, with it's separate LR and DR that no one ever went in.

cdina,

Wow, do you have any pics? That sounds almost exactly like what we did. We had the small door from kitchen to deck turned into a window and added french door slider in the DR a few years ago and now we knocked down the wall between the kitchen and DR.

FWIW, we have a fixture there and didn't even think/consider doing recessed lighting in the DR section.

Another fan of recessed lighting here (though I still love seeing redroze's perfect choice pendants in her gorgeous kitchen!). We had recessed lighting put in in our old LR (now the DR) shortly after buying our house, and replaced the ones in our DR (now the LR) when we vaulted the ceiling during the kitchen reno. They are all on dimmers and we use incandescent bulbs (floods) in them, so they never look like spotlights. We like the clean, open look they give without anything hanging down from the ceiling.

If we ever have the desire (and the $) to get a really cool hanging fixture (like the awesome Dale Chihuly-inspired one costing "a nice chunk o' change" that I saw in NYC with trailrunner last year!), we might consider it, but certainly don't feel it's necessary, nor do we feel that our DR is lacking in any way without one.

We don't have pictures yet. We are only in the planning stage and are working on an electrical plan with our KD. My husband thinks we should get rid of the recessed lighting and I think we should keep the chandelier. We are getting rid of the kitchen sliders and replacing it with a window.

I opened my dining room and kitchen to be one big room. I have recessed lights in my dining area as well as a regular fixture. They are on separate switches. I can turn off the recessed lights and have ambient light, on a dimmer switch, for dining. The recessed lights are just on the perimeter. We did this for a number of reasons. My 86 year old mom comes on Sundays to cook with me. She needs to sit at the table to do prep work. I can turn the recessed lights on so that she can see really well. Also on occasion my DH has a meeting in the dining room. He works from home. Versatility (aka as multiple switches) is the key.