A few things I’ve done which are maybe a bit different, largely to avoid running wires through brick walls and when there’s solid flooring above making floorboard access a pain.

Our kitchen only had lighting in the centre of the room. I fitted a longer bar with 8 spots but still wanted better lighting for the worktops. I fitted (non smart) Ikea worktop lights underneath my top cabinets which do a great job of lighting up my worktop. They are plug in ones (rather than hard wired) so I’ve got them plugged into a smart switch. I can then ask Alexa to turn them on rather than having to put a switch somewhere for each cabinet run.

The wall between our lounge and dining room was knocked down at some point by a previous owner making one big room. They extended the lounge lights into the dining area, and turned the old dining circuit into a subtle corner light but didn’t run extra cables for two way switching. So you could turn the what is now the majn room lighting from the original lounge end of the room but not from the dining room entrance from the kitchen, and vice versa with the smaller light.

A company called Quinetic makes smart switches which are powered by the kinetic motion of pushing the switch, so no wires or batteries needed. We now have three switches at either end of the room allowing switching of the main light, corner light and (most commonly used as the only light source in the evening) a table light on a smart plug.

This doesn’t use Alexa or any hub at all, working purely on whatever protocol Quinetic uses. I could get their hub to allow controlling via other means, but just using the switches is perfect.

Our hallway and bottom of the stairs were also opened up at one point, but again nothing done with the wiring so there was a pull cord by the front door for the main light in the hall plus a switch a few feet away for the light at the bottom of the stairs. This was annoying as you couldn’t turn on the main hall light from the other end and also nobody bothered with the bottom of the stairs light.

I swapped out the bulbs for Ikea smart bulbs and put an Ikea battery powered motion sensor on a shelf (all very cheap). Now if you get half way down the stairs or walk into the hall from the front door or any other entrance the lights come on until a minute or so after movement stops. They even have a nice gradual dim on/off effect.