placement of downlights

[marcivic]

My living room is 16' by 9' (4.8 x 2.7 metres), and I'm going to fit 3 (50w-240v) downlights along the longest wall, 2 on the opposite wall (where there is a door on one end) and one in the centre of the room to replace the hole where the current light fixture is.

I will also fit a dimmer switch.

I was looking for some advice on how far away from each wall I should place the downlights to get optimum lighting?

Also if anyone thinks that I'm putting too many / few downlights for the living space, or if the amount on each wall is questionable.

Thanks,
Marcivic

[Steve]

How many watts of light do you have in your living room now?

You will have 300 watts there. Can you justify this increase in energy consumption? Stick with the centre light, it is more relaxing and doesn't create uncomfortable pools of light.

Dimmers and dimmed lights are inefficient. With the lights at half output you'll still be using 75% of the energy. You'd need a 600 watt dimmer. Why install a dimmer? Use less lights!

Any amount of halogen downlighters is too many. They are dreadfully inefficient and produce crazy amounts of heat.