Under-cabinet Lighting

We had an electrician come in before we renovated the kitchen, to update some of the wiring and add some additional outlets. We also had him wire for future under-cabinet lighting. For the past year and a half we have had wires hanging down underneath our cabinets because I was having a hard time finding slimline hardwired under-cabinet lighting. Last night I finally found some.

After all of my searches online and in stores, I finally decided on the UtiliTech Pro LED Direct-wire Under-cabinet Lighting, which I found at Lowe's. We bought a light for each cabinet... two 30", two 12", and a 24". When we got home, we realized that we had used common sense, and assumed that a 30" (or 12" or 24") under-cabinet light would be for a 30" cabinet. But the 30" was the actual dimension of the light, so it was about 2" too wide for the cabinet. We ended up having to use the 24" on the 30", 18" on the 24", etc. The only problem was that they didn't sell a size smaller than 12", but we'll need a 9" one for the cabinets on either side of the stove. We'll deal with that later I guess.

We had a wicked busy day today, but R installed the light above the dishwasher. It looks awesome. We have been turning it on every time we walk in the kitchen! It's so nice to have the extra light on the countertop!

We're planning on buying a dimmer switch for the under-cabinet lights. I'm not sure why I didn't have the electrician install one right from the start. I can't wait until our next party.. it'll be so nice to have some nice mood lighting in the kitchen :)

We're Back in the 21st Century!

Since the end of July, we've had no power in the back half of our house. It's felt like a lot longer than that. For about a month we didn't use our downstairs bathroom, until R decided to run an extension cord to a lamp that's sitting on a pile of boxes. We had to use flashlights to get up the backstairs at night. There's a long exterior-use extension cord running from the Guest Bedroom through my Office and into the Twilight Room to power either R's computer or the air conditioner. Vacuuming was not easy. You had to duck walking down the stairs (well, duck even more than you had to before) so you wouldn't hit your head on the wires coming out of the ceiling (don't worry.. it's not like they were live or anything). Summer '11 was a crazy one for us and if we were home for an entire weekend, R's time was taken up by things that were a little bit more pressing, such as cutting the grass (pretty much an all day job) or building the coop or preparing and then cleaning up after the hurricane.

But... we have a goal now. R's birthday is smack dab in the middle of October and we always have a family party (his family lives in a different state and we try to do as many things as we can down here so both families can be together because as uncharacteristic as this is, they actually like each other). My mom brought up a good point when I mentioned the party to her. "You can't have everyone (mostly extended family, aunts, uncles, cousins) over here with it looking exactly the same way it did in January for your birthday party!" *sigh* Once again, mom's right. While it's not like we've sat around doing nothing for the past 8 months, the things we've done wouldn't really be noticeable to "normal" people. "Oh, you added another coat of paint in here? Looks the same to me!" "You updated this outlet? Woww....." "Is that a new chimney cap I see? Impressive!" "A garden? A chicken coop? Is that all you've done this year?" (Sense the sarcasm?) The main thing people will notice is that the Kitchen basically looks exactly the same. Yeah, I've unpacked more boxes, organized the cabinets, painted the fireplace, did patching/etc on the walls. But the overall picture is exactly the same. I can't have that!! So the point of this story is... by the end of October, that Kitchen needs to be done. Done as in floor: installed. Walls: painted. Trim: installed and painted. Fireplace: painted and decorated. New light fixtures: installed. With that huge room done it'll make a huge difference! Plus it'll be a nice room to sit in and eat/talk with our relatives, as opposed to a half finished, dirty room.

The old light switch at the bottom of the stairs. It was only 34 cents! Look at that scary wiring!

The first step was to get all of the drywall up, taped and sanded. However, a couple months ago R took down some of the drywall under the window (while I was crying "now we're going backwards! :'( ). He had good reason. When I was in the Kitchen cooking, every once in awhile I'd hear crackling sounds. We traced the sounds back to the outlets under the windows. This scared the pyrophobiac (is this a word?) in me. R immediately turned off that breaker and a month later took down the drywall and tried to fix it. Long story short, he wasn't able to easily fix it. And then the Crazy Summer happened and it got put off until this weekend. I asked him to put up the drywall around the posts near the windows and he said that he would do that when he put the drywall back under the windows. So he fixed the outlets first. He had thoroughly researched it and knew exactly what to do this time. Piece of cake. Finished in about 2 hours. Then he was on an electrical roll. He moved on to the hall light (the point of this post. Finally). This wasn't as easy...
I'll admit, I wasn't there while he was fixing it, so I'm not 100% sure of exactly what he did or in what order. (Pyrophobia, remember?) All I know is that apparently what is in our walls is a mess. He cleaned it up where he could, adding new wire where he could. I flipped breakers when he told me to. He had blown-in insulation fall all over him when the plaster ceiling broke a little while he was drilling through it. He installed two (well, three really because he replaced the one in our bedroom while he was up there) new light switches and two new temporary light fixtures. This hall/staircase isn't at the top of our to-do list, it's maybe 4th after the Kitchen. But it will be re-done in the near future. And when that time comes, new nicer light fixtures will be installed. For now, it's just nice to finally have light fixtures in the steep, scary staircase we the most. And it's a little easier to sleep at night knowing that the wiring is a little safer. Someday... in the far future... we'll replace all of the wiring. But that's a huge job that we couldn't do ourselves, which means it'll have to wait :)

Slight Electrical Problem

Last night when R was coming up to bed, he turned on the light at the bottom of the back staircase. Only it didn't turn on. He was a little concerned because the lightbulbs in the two fixtures attached to this switch were newish (less than a year old) CFL bulbs. They shouldn't even be close to the end of their life yet. So this morning he decided to check it out. And we're both glad he did.

The first thing he realized was that the light fixture wasn't attached to the ceiling very well. In fact, hardly at all. When he took it down, about 20 acorns and other miscellaneous "stuff" fell out of the ceiling. 

He ended up taking down the drywall in this part of the ceiling because he wanted to clean out all of the acorns and debris, and also get a better look at the wiring. This staircase is one of the areas we're planning on completely gutting so I had no problem with this.The drywall would have come down eventually anyways.

R went to Lowe's and bought a new electrical box and a simple $1 light bulb holder similar to this. We figured it would be fine as a temporary fixture until we could get to gutting and remodeling the whole staircase. However, just like everything in our house, it just wasn't that simple. After a couple hours of staring and testing, R decided he wasn't comfortable enough messing with the wiring. It appears that it wasn't done correctly (in fact, there's all black burn marks on the back of the drywall and wood showing that the wires/fixture got too hot) in the first place, and some of the wires were frayed, so we both decided it would be best to have a professional look at it. Until then, we don't have any electricity in the back half of the house (both upstairs and downstairs). The only room with power back there is the upstairs bathroom and the attic. So we've been using a lot of flashlights and extension cords :)

Kitchen Lighting

We haven't installed any of the new Kitchen light fixtures yet, but they've all been purchased. Lighting is one of my favorite parts of my job... I love choosing new light fixtures! There's so much to choose from!

The first fixture will be installed in the cabinet above the sink. I've never really seen anything done like this before, but putting an undercabinet light here didn't seem like it would provide enough light. And I'm not a fan of those small fluorescent lights you sometimes see installed under cabinets above sinks. I bought a pendant light. I've seen pendants installed over sinks when they're in front of windows and I'm not really a fan because they block the view out the window. But here, I'll just have a beadboard backsplash, which will make a nice background for the pendant light. The stem can be adjusted so that it's very very short (it almost won't look like a pendant). The shape and style match the next light fixture.

This light fixture will be installed in the general work area of the Kitchen. It is replacing a flush ceiling mount fixture. This fixture will be pretty close to the ceiling, but lowered enough so that it will throw some light onto the ceiling. It's a very simple fixture that I think will match well with the rest of the house.

For over the Kitchen table I wanted something more traditional. Since this half of the Kitchen is kind of set apart from the rest of the Kitchen, I felt it was okay to change things up a bit. This fixture will be centered above our traditional table, as well as centered on the fireplace and built in cabinet. It is very similar, but slightly less formal, to the fixture I am planning on purchasing for the Dining Room.  If you look carefully you'll notice that the shades have a similar shape as the glass shades of the other two lights.


Anyone looking to buy light fixtures, please check out www.bellacor.com. I've used them for work before and have always found that they have a great selection and great prices. And you can't beat their quick delivery times! (And no, they haven't paid me to say this.. I'm just that pleased with them!)

Here's the specifics on the Kitchen Lights:

1:

Manufacturer: Murray Feiss

Retailer: www.bellacor.com

Model: Barrington Oil Rubbed Bronze Mini Pendant

Finish: Oil Rubbed Bronze

Price: $70

2:

Manufacturer: Murray Feiss

Retailer: www.bellacor.com

Model: Barrington Oil Rubbed Bronze Small Semi-Flush

Finish: Oil Rubbed Bronze

Price: $70

3:

Manufacturer: ?

Retailer: www.overstock.com

Model: Iron 5-Light Black Chandelier

Finish: Black

Price: $107

Electrical Work

This week the electrician came in and rewired our Kitchen. He installed a bunch of new above counter GFCI outlets, hidden outlets for the dishwasher, garbage disposal, range and microwave and/or hood. We also had him install switches for the 2 existing Kitchen ceiling fixtures, the exterior light next to the door, a switch for the garbage disposal and a switch and wiring for future undercabinet lighting. It's going to be a beautiful Kitchen! He also ended up replacing some other Kitchen outlets for us and two in the Dining Room!

Kitchen Demo Day 1

Our Kitchen extends for about 3/4 of the back half of the house. That's a pretty large Kitchen. But it doesn't feel big. In fact it feels small, dark and cramped. Today, we took the first step toward fixing that.

To give you a better idea of what we're working with here, this is what we have. We have half of the Kitchen as an eat-in breakfast area. I love this part of the Kitchen. I've always wanted to have a Kitchen table. This half of the Kitchen has two large windows, a HUGE fireplace, plenty of room for a large Kitchen table, a built-in cabinet with shelves and cabinet doors below, plus the door to the back stairs and an opening into the hall. The other half of the Kitchen has all of the appliances and cabinets, two more smaller windows, an opening to the Dining Room and a Dutch door that leads to the backyard.


Separating the two areas is this:

The bane of my existence. I hate this thing! It ruins my big Kitchen! And it's so old and gross. The cabinets don't have any shelves in them, and open on both sides. Half of the drawers open on one side, and the other half open on the other side. All are filled with garbage, papers, phone books, tools, bowls, plastic silverware.. And it's right next to the door, so after struggling to open that pain of a door, you feel squished and cramped as you enter the house. And this is the door we will be using on a daily basis. It (the cabinet, well, the door too) had to go. Sure, someone back in the 50's thought it was a great idea. It's a tough Kitchen for cabinetry because there are so many windows and doors, and the only long wall is taken up by the cooking fireplace.

Goodbye. Good riddance. It was pretty easy to take down.. the only problem was a stray crowbar making a hole in the ceiling, but that's easy to fix. It was the top of the cabinet that was the most disgusting.. it was covered in about 60 years of dust, dirt and mouse poop. No wonder the Kitchen smells so bad!

Since they were on such a roll, the guys decided to also take down some of the other upper cabinets and cabinet doors off of the lower cabinets to make Demo Day Part 2 easier. We also learned how the mice had been getting into the Kitchen (though lucky we haven't been graced by their presence (knock on wood), they left plenty of evidence that they had been there in the past). The corner pantry cabinet had a hole in the floor beneath it that had been cut to run wiring up from the basement to an outlet on the corner post. A mouse (mice) had been squeezing through the hole next to the wire, and in doing so had frayed the wire. So unsafe! Good thing we saw this before we ever used this outlet! This wiring also went to the stove, which was plugged in so we could use the clock on it. That also got unplugged.