Craft Room Project: Lighting Completed!

Okay, you KNOW it couldn’t have been simple. That just isn’t how this project has gone.

Even though I’d already been dealing with the tangled mess that was the epically weird electrical box they installed for the main light and all the research we did to figure out what we needed to do to get that sucker installed, it STILL didn’t go up without a lot of extra effort.

The newest problem was the fact that this box sits so that it comes outside of the drywall a bit and doesn’t sit very deep. The depth issue made it incredibly difficult to get the fixture in place and all the wires tucked in. This particular fixture has a ton of wires because there are lots of lights. At first, I didn’t think it was going to work at all because there was zero room in the box itself, so all the excess wires had to go inside the housing on the fixture. A little creative problems solving and some electrical tape to hold everything in place and that issue was fixed.

But of course, those weren’t enough problems and headaches for a single light fixture.

Once I was finally able to get that fixed and the fixture in place on the mounting bracket, I discovered that the bracket cannot sit deep enough into the ceiling for the fixture to sit flush to the ceiling itself. Because of that damn box. There was about a 1/4 of an inch gap between the base of the fixture and the drywall when the nuts were screwed on as far as they would go.

So, back to the research and the creative problem solving. Again!

There were things I could do to kind of solve the problem, but none of them would look even remotely good and would have been obvious that I Frankenstein’d the whole thing. I seriously considered a decorative medallion, but realized that they probably wouldn’t be thick enough to solve my problem and what I could easily access were just too elaborate for what I’m doing in the space. Gorgeous, but too much.

The other option was to use some sort of a spacer on the mounting bolt between the fixture and the nut so the fixture would be pushed up against the ceiling, but none of the options I could find would match my fixture and I’d have to do something like paint whatever I used. I decided to at least see if I had something that might work as a test to give me an idea of what would actually work. Turns out I had several nuts that were the same finish as my fixture that were just barely larger than the mounting bolts and they slid on easily and were the perfect height when I stacked two of them together. Yay for being a bit of a pack rat when it comes to extra parts!

It was just an amazing bit of luck after one of the biggest headaches I’ve ever dealt with when it comes to electrical. I’ll do electrical any day over plumbing. Hell! I think I’d rather have needles shoved under my nails than do plumbing and this was worse than most any plumbing I’ve ever done.

But the lighting headache is officially over and done. I’m never touching that thing again unless it is to change a bulb.

I also managed to get the vent covers in place, so that should be the last of the breaking my neck to work over my head pieces completed and another thing off the final inspection check list.

The new door frames have all the nicks and holes filled and sanded and the new trim has a layer of paint on it. Once that is dry, I’ll be cutting it and putting it up and getting it ready to finish. My plan, fingers crossed there are no more bumps along the way, is to have the doors and trim ready for me to paint tomorrow. I still have to caulk the seams and edges, so the painting may not happen until Saturday.

I’m getting SO close to being able to work on the floor which is going to leap the look of this forward so much!