Have you considered how your going to vent the fan? You need to find a way to get it outside the house. You should not blow it into your attic or soffits. You may need to remove more drywall than you think. The drywall should hold fine unsupported by the wall sheets however if you are going to install new drywall, why not remove the old drywall first? You will have access to deal properly with your fan/light and ventilation. It is not that much more work and unless there was something like loose insulation up there. Even then it might be worth dealing with. One layer of drywall is lighter and easier to deal with when it comes to things like recessed lights and ceiling fans. Some times the clips that hold the housing in place need that 1/2" above pane to be wood and create the plane by attaching to the joists or strapping (depending on your location) If you are going the patch and skim rout and you have not done it before, it could be time consuming and difficult to get the results you would want. Good luck with your project!

Thanks, Ron. I should also mention that I'm in a condo and on the top floor. There are condos below me. The condo building was built in the 1920s. The wiring in the junction box runs to the basement. The wiring for the new light fixtures and fan, on the other hand, run to a new sub-panel I installed in the kitchen. It was very tricky finding a path from the basement to the sub-panel! We eventually discovered a path by following a vent stack that ran from the basement to the roof. To make a long story short, I don't see how we could have gotten rid of the old wiring in the junction box. Placing wire nuts on the wires and installing a plate seemed to be a reasonable solution, though it may not look ideal on the ceiling from an aesthetic point of view. But maybe someone out there has a better solution. Again, thanks for your feedback.

I have recessed lighting in my master bedroom. I also have a ceiling fan with a light. Originally the room only had a ceiling fan with lights. Because the room is long and narrow, the room was always dark. Recessed lighting is unobtrusive ad provides great lighting in the rooms. I have 8 4" recessed lights spread out through the rooms and a ceiling fan with a 50w halogen downlight. The lights are usually turned on at 25% dim rate for general tasks in the bedrooms. When I am cleaning the room, making the bed,etc, the lights are at 100%. In the winter, the lights are event more important since we have less daylight. In the second bedroom that also did not have any ceiling light except a fan with lights, I added surface mounted lights. Due to the size and shape of the room, I used 4 led surface mounted lights. They provide great lighting and are almost un noticeable. For the third bedroom, also with no lighting but a Ceiling fan. I am adding five of these led fixtures with the ceiling fan. Two of the rooms have 8ft ceilings and the third bedroom has 10ft ceilings. This is the ceiling fan that I used in the rooms. They are all huggers so that they are not a problem in a 8ft room. Persnally, I prefer to light rooms in layers and with dimmer. I also have wall mounted task lights for reading in bed. Good luck!

I would look for any fixture that is preferably UL "wet" rated and doesn't hang down too much.