Man Gift to My Wife Pt. 5

Alright so this is the final installation in my home improvement projects for now that I promised to Renae by the New Years (it wasn't that she was really asking, these are just some things that have been on our list for a while that I knew I had time to get done).

When we first moved in, the living room was where I wanted to concentrate all of my efforts. Realistically though we thought that we should just make it livable at the moment, and then come back to it later. One of the things that I wanted to do was to add recessed lighting....Renae said no.

I also wanted to update the lighting in the kitchen because I hated the ugly lights that came with the house. We looked a few different options for lighting in the kitchen, but they were all pretty expensive. For example, just to replace the two existing lights with decent looking fixtures we were talking at minimum $120. That was not ideal to me, because I wanted to brighten up the room...not just pay a lot for more shadows.

Real quick run-down of how awesome this little project turned out to be...it was such a blessing. I ended up creating an estimate for the products needed to complete this project. To run all the wire, add lights, get the covers, the bulbs, all the little things that people usually forget about I came up with our number. Then I hit all sorts of good deals on the supplies and my dad was clutch by providing us with some free electrical wire, we ended up basically doing the living room lights and getting the kitchen for almost free!!!!

Enough of that, here are the pictures:

Kitchen Lights

Notice the ugly light fixtures. In their defense they  do not have their glassware on, but the glass only made it darker in the kitchen.

Note to anyone doing things in their ceilings when they do not have a basement...you are most likely going to find all sorts of wires and pipes running through your ceilings which may alter your original plans :) I found this out during this project.

Two recessed light housings in, and working on the third one for this run. Dad was getting the bulbs in for the test.

As you can see here, I cut the hole perfectly the first time...and just my luck I hit hot and cold water pipes for the bathroom :-D Not a problem though, just move the hole.

Then we began working on the second run of lights.

We had Renae be our official "Light Tester" on the first bank. It was crucial to finally have a light over the sink so we weren't working in the darkness anymore.

This was the second light that gave me issues. There was a sewage pipe for the toilet right in the center of this cut. The shallow style housing wouldn't fit by like 1/6 of an inch. So...move the hole.

Gave a shot at throwing some mud on the patches...I'm not that great with spackle.

Threw some paint over the sanded mud, and now it's time to let it dry over night.

All done in the kitchen...well for now, I can't wait to get my hands on the kitchen updates.

Living Room Lights

The before shot...sorry that it's so dark.

The other angle before shot.

I had tons of help between my dad and my son helping me out. Here Logan was helping me to adjust the template to trace for the cut.

Luckily we were able to run all the wire we needed with less trouble than I thought we would have.

Running the wire was fun, we had to notch out holes at every joist, but my dad had a new "toy" that we used that made our lives so much easier! Thank you Milwaukee tools!

We called in Renae to give the official test once the lights were up and wired...they all worked like a charm.

Those pesky little notches needed to be metal plated to protect the wire and then filled in with patches and covered with mud.

All holes are patched and drying...ready to be painted.

Nice little toggle dimmer switches to control the lighting.

Patches painted and waiting to dry.

All done in the living room...except for newer furnishings and wall decorations.

The right side.

The left side.

A Little Something Extra:

Blow Out Patches

I owe this to a friend of mine who taught me this little trick. To fill in holes when mudding try using a blow out patch it looks like this:

Cut out a rectangle or square of the drywall that is big enough to cover your hole....even leave some extra room for plenty of overlapping.

Then flip the drywall over and cut of the size you need. This one was used to cover that big hole I made that was under the water pipes. Gently cut and break away the piece that you don't need leaving the paper on the front. Then when you are ready, load the parts of paper with mud, throw it into the hole and secure it (usually with a small piece of wood that you anchor in the hole) and the smooth out the mud from behind the paper and cover the patch.