I agree with Marcolo on visual comfort. My lights were back ordered and they did not even call or email me. I realized that the lights had not arrived and called them and they had some lame excuse like we were not sure about your zip code.. I have the Boston swing arm and it is not as adjustable as I would like. I have the double jointed one but it is kind of tight and hard to adjust. If you are truly looking for a great reading light in bed, I would highly recommend a LED that is Dimmable. It does not get warm and the light throw can be very tight allowing your SO to sleep without the glare of the light. I love the Holtkotter Bernie because the light is just fabulous. My DD's reading nook has it. But for our bedside, I got the Night owl light by lightology. It is 3watts I think. The feedback was that the gooseneck on this is high quality and does not get floppy. Here is a link that might be useful: Night owl.

We totally love our swing-arm lamps (they're more modern) -- we had them hardwired into the wall when we remodeled. If I'd known how much I'd love them (light on my book, tiltable), I would have just put some up before the remodel and used the cord cover. For me, I stay up reading after DH goes to bed, so they're completely perfect, in that I can dim them completely, move them closer or farther from the bed, and angle the light so it hits precisely on the book. And the space they make on the bedside table is just wonderful, as we tend to use our bedside tables for books. If you're not hardwiring them, just go ahead and put them up and see what you think. You can always take them down. The cord covers are paintable, too, so they'll pretty much disappear, and I've seen them used in higher-end designs, even, rather than hardwiring the fixtures in.

Camlan, yes I read in bed, as well as place a drink on the bedside table if I'm doing office work in bed. The table surface should be about 19.5"w x 18"d. If I go with Plan B, undercabinet lighting would probably be warm fluorescent as quite a bit of light is thrown out both to the sides and forward. A similar set-up was used in a bedroom for my son in my last home, and the reading light was fine. If I do Plan A, the wall cabinet height may need to be reduced to 30" to place the light at the right height. This is something I could live with. I guess my question is, do you think undercabinet lighting in a nice bedroom would shout "kitchen" as my designer seems to think? I do not wish to do both types of lighting as either one should serve my purpose so I do not see the need for both. And yes, lighting behind the valance is already planned, with the focus to be on a painting above the bed.

IMO lamps only really work if you have big bedside tables where maybe you want to fill in some of that "acreage". ;-) My nightstands' tops are only 12"x14" (had a very small bedroom when they were purchased) and wasting any of that minimal room with lamps is just plain crazy, since it's barely big enough for an alarm clock, book, remote on top of the book and bottle of water. Instead we chose to use some very pretty swing-arm lamps (and the buyers said I could take them with us when they heard they were not replaceable - YAAAAAY!!) which were so very convenient. They were the kind where you could raise them up or down as well as side to side, too, sort of like Pottery Barn's Saratoga Sconce. Inline switches are wonderful and can be added onto any table or wall lamp very easily by anyone who can read simple instructions in case the lamp's original switch is too far to reach easily when you're half asleep. :-) You don't even need to change out the socket or anything. If your lamp is metal you could also make it into a touch lamp with a little converter gadget you can get at Ace Hardware; one kind screws into the socket and another plugs into the wall and the lamp plugs into that. If the lamp's not metal you could use a special touch pad or plug-in slider dimmer, which you could mount to the side of your bedside table - good if the bedside table is very wide. Some of these gadgets even let you turn a regular lamp into a three-way lamp, which is excellent if you need very bright light to read but like lower light for watching TV or just hanging out. If you fall in love with sconces that require hardwiring but you don't want to hardwire them, any lamp repair place (many lamp shops have a repair department, and call electrical supply companies as well if there are no listings for "lamp repair" in the phone book) can convert them to plug-in for you, with inline switches if you like. We had this done and it only cost about $15 each. Use paintable cord covers like Wiremold from Home Depot to cover up the cord so it doesn't just dangle (something that makes me crazy). Just make sure they're not hanging at a point where you will get glare at your preferred reading/TV-watching position. Same goes for if you were to use pendants over each nightstand, which looks really snazzy too.