Pot lights and interior lighting, GTA.

Fewer than most quotes suggest. The usual failure is a grid of identical lights producing flat, shadowless light that makes a room look like an office. Better is layered: a smaller number of ceiling lights placed to wash the walls, plus something at eye level.

Spacing depends on ceiling height and beam angle. An eight-foot ceiling wants them closer to the walls than people expect — roughly two to three feet off, not centred in the room.

Warm — 2700K in living spaces, 3000K in kitchens and bathrooms where you want a little more crispness. Anything at 4000K or above reads as commercial in a house, and it is the single most common regret we hear after an install.

Also check the CRI. Above 90 and skin, wood and paint look like themselves. Below 80, everything looks slightly wrong and nobody can say why.

A Licensed Electrical Contractor, with the work notified to the Electrical Safety Authority under their licence. That is not a formality — uninspected electrical is the kind of thing an insurer raises after a fire. We handle the ceiling, the cutting, the patching and the paint; the electrical connection and certification is theirs.

Usually. Retrofit housings go into a cut hole and clamp to the drywall, and cable can often be fished through an existing ceiling. Where it cannot — a concrete ceiling in a condo, or insulation in the way — we will tell you before quoting rather than discovering it on site.

Always, and use the dimmer the fixture manufacturer specifies. LED and the wrong dimmer is why lights buzz, flicker at the bottom of the range, or refuse to go properly dark. It is a five-dollar decision that determines whether you like the room.