My MB ceiling is the same as yours and we've always called it a tray. There are double trays too. Our MB walls are painted BM Pittsfield Buff then we've got crown moulding. The flat part of the ceiling surrounding the tray is white and the angled part of the tray is also Pittsfield Buff. The tray itself is the next darker shade on the same color strip, BM Yorkshire Tan, if I'm remembering correctly. A decorator selected this combo. She said that painting the flat part of the tray a darker shade makes the ceiling feel higher.

happyday321.....first, if you decide to do a fan, I would not do a light kit (kind of similar to the tacky look of a white ceiling fan imo). FWIW, we didn’t install any ceiling fans in our new home (I would rather have a nice chandelier), BUT, we’re in a rental now waiting to finish up our build, and there are ceiling fans here. One of them is in a vaulted ceiling (14 feet up), and I have to say that it does help to cool thngs off for those feeling a little flash of heat now and then :) Four cans in a 20x22 foot room seems a bit skimpy to me. I am by no means a lighting expert and the amount of cans I installed in my greatroom most “normal” people would consider completely overkill. The room is 20x20, and we have 11 cans (and that lighting doesn’t include the center chandelier :) ). Two cans are directed towards the fireplace wall so let’s not count those, so that would be 9 cans. If I remember correctly, my lighting guys recommended 6 in our greatroom. My ceilings are only 10 feet and yours are 12, so that needs to be taken into account as well.

I am wrestling with the same decision. My new home is a 1920's Dutch colonial with cofferred ceilings on the entire first floor. All original woodwork. While it is beautiful it really darkens the space. There is not a lot of natural light to balance it out. Being close to the beach, a white trim would be more appropriate and more to my tastes, but I have a massive amount of guilt over the thought of covering the original wood. What did you decide to do?

As said by Mark, I don't think anyone would notice. The coffer will actually help disguise the recessed lights and the speakers. We are building and will have a coffered ceiling through the entire great room (family room and kitchen.) I've not given our ceiling much thought other than to make sure everything is in symmetry. In the family room, we are not using recessed lights in the coffers except for an eyeball pointed toward the FP mantle (in gray). We prefer natural light and lamp lighting. We will have a centered fan, but no lights on that. We also have two bump out areas. One houses a large group of bookshelves that stretch across one end of the room. There will be 4" recessed lights over the bookcases (in gray). The other bump-out will have an entertainment credenza with our T.V. mounted on the wall above. There will be 4" recessed lights over this area (in gray). The kitchen area will have recessed cans in the outer coffered boxes, and two hanging lights over the middle island. I did not include the whole kitchen layout in this attachment. Our in ceiling speakers are located in the coffers on either side of the middle (see in yellow.)