I currently have a kitchen with 12' ceilings. I have all recessed LED lights. Because there are no hanging cabinets, you don't need under cabinet lights. The recessed lights are not blocked by the cabinets. I'm sure there is a preferred measurement from the wall. Mine look like they are about 18" from the wall and shine directly on the counter top. My recessed lights are all switched so that each of the four walls operates from a different switch. Most of the time, I only need one wall on, but occasionally I'll have a two walls on. All four walls and it looks like a retail store. They are all on dimmers. I do have a huge center island with an enormous pot rack over it. The pot rack is lit with halogen puck lights. I rarely turn the pot rack lights on. Actually, I'm thinking of getting rid of the pot rack. It's visual clutter and I don't need the storage. It's just my opinion but I find the wires running across the ceiling visually busy.

Roman shades on large windows will look like blankets because they are constructed of fabric. The green window treatment pictured above looks to be cellular shades, not roman shades. When the roman shade is drawn closed it will have little structure and essentially look like a large piece of fabric, like a blanket. When you look online for images of roman shades they are mostly shown on cute little windows. You don't often see them in massive windows and when you do they aren't typically photographed drawn closed, because yep, it looks like a blanket.

We'll need to see a photo of the space. It depends on everything else you have, including the width and length of the island. Design style makes a difference as well.

My experience talking with you, @Jan, and others about pendant placement has been tremendously helpful! I am so grateful! I would like to offer a thank you in the form of sharing a creative little trick that came to me today when I was trying to use @Jan's diagram to make the marks on the ceiling for the electrician. Those of you who have experience with decorating, probably have tricks like this and maybe what I came up with is not novel. But it was new to me and so I'll share it in the hopes it helps someone else. So here's the "trick": I had read that it's a good idea to use wrapping paper and cut out squares of the same diameter as your pendant and then place the squares on the floor where the island will be. So I cut out 19 inch squares and then I folded each square into a triangle, as you can see in photo. Next I snipped off the point of the triangle so that when you open up the paper and lay it flat, you have a little hole in the center of the square! So, armed with @Jan's diagram, my husband and I went to work on the floor where the island will be. The contractor had already marked the island off with tape. So all we did, was measure 15 inches from each long end, and at that point we placed one of the squares down on the floor. Next we took a pen and marked the center of the hole in the square. This represents the spot on the floor that's directly under where the electrician will put the center of the mounting plate on the ceiling. Then, to find where to put the mark on the ceiling, my husband used a laser and we marked the spot with tape! :)