Our current living room dimensions are almost exactly the same. I think it looks good, but much of the "visual height" comes from wide openings to foyer and kitchen with transoms above each to 8'. I also have my window treatments started closer to the ceiling to elongate the window. If I can get the toys picked up enough to take a pic I will post one. If you can get 10' I would - that extra foot does alot for the room.

I realize this is silly and not even close to relevant. But... From you... "I just measured the temperature of a heatsink in an open trim can at 140° and if there were nowhere for that heat to go, the bulb would fail sooner than later." and also from you, "Failure is failure, and a condition of continually too hot is supposed to be even harder on them regardless of what kind of an exotic name they give their test." and finally one more, "When you have 120° degree summer heat pounding down on a cathedral ceiling roof, and the heat sink is 4" underneath that with insulation on the sides, it keeps the heat from escaping the bulb and it WILL heat up to the failure point." Now from the report that you provided, "The lamps were operated continuously at an ambient temperature of 45°C" and "While none of the LED lamps exhibited catastrophic failure—and all of the benchmarks did—the early degradation of performance is concerning." If you examine the actual study further you find that only two of the 15 samples were below purported luminosity after the test. Remember NONE FAILED. If someone maybe said earlier in the thread, "The concern with operating LEDs above their optimal temperature is usually luminosity degredation not failure. Wait, someone said that earlier you say? Could it have been me? Surely not, because you shot back with, "Put the lamp in a ceiling-mounted fully enclosed fixture and set the timer for when failure will occur." To put this in perspective, Assuming you operated the light for four hours per day in ambient temperatures in excess of 113 degrees, and 8 hours on the weekend at those temperatures, and the temperatures remained that high for 33% of the year, AND you chose one of the 13% of bulbs that don't last long, you will only get 9.6 years before your lights are noticeably dimmer (remember not failed, just dimmer). Of course, if you picked one of the others that were predicted to fail you can extend that another 9 years or so. While if you got lucky in your bulb selection, you are good for the long haul. I never argued that LEDs were good, I stated that they were better than any other alternate bulb. And they are... Now, please take your time, come up with some more evidence that completely contradicts everything in your previous points while you deftly switch your stance (since you have managed to go from led bulbs are bad because they fail, to led bulbs are bad because they degrade, to led bulbs are the best but can lights are bad in this application).

Well, you need an attachment point above it. I sprayed the tree with anti-dessicant spray so it wouldn't dry out, drilled a 1/2" hole through the base of the trunk, put a rope through the hole, threw the rope over the support that it would be hanging from, and hoisted it up. Then I put on the lights and ornaments after it was in place. Wish I had a picture to show you, but can't find one right now.

I can’t say I’m a big fan of that wall. It’s always hard when someone takes a random wall out of the middle of the house and finishes it differently from all the others (if it was good enough for one wall, why wasn’t it good enough for the other three?) also, the style doesn’t relate to the style of the doors (other than matching in color, thankfully). So, I think my inclination would be to paint it out, either to match the brick or the other walls (probably, I’d go with the brick). However, I’m curious to hear what others might think.