Wife friendly can also be sound friendly
Here you go...my wife did not want anything hanging from the walls or ceiling in our HT / family room so I went with ceiling speakers.
It is really hard to EAR test ceiling or inwall speakers since they sound much different after they are installed.
Hints
1. if your house in 1 story...install ceiling speakers...they are easier to install and less visible
2. don't be cheap...if you are going to carve up your ceiling...might as well put some good speakers in it.
3. be carefull there are a lot of ceiling/inwall speakers nowdays and most of them are glorified car speakers...so make sure they have good materials and REAL two way crossovers (most car speakers only have highpass cap only).
4. do a good install, measure twice cut once and use good wire, I used belden 8477 12 AWG twisted, jacketed wire, look for it on the net.
5. most of the speakers are NOT-sealed so after they are installed cover the back side with a 12" subwoofer baffle it will help the sound and keep dust, bugs and mice away from the speakers. here is a link
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-nglce8Y...&search=baffle
I installed NHT 6.1c speakers (first were bic inceiling which were junk then JBL wich were not much better)
If you have a modest budget $250 / pair ...stick with the NHT Ic1
http://www.nhthifi.com/2004/products...=3&SubjectID=4
If you have no limit try the $500 / pair...buy B&W CCM65
http://www.bwspeakers.com/index.cfm/.../Model%20CCM65
good luck