The Daily Biff - Small Home Renovation Project: Family Room Spot Light (continued)

Currently playing on my computer (tune in: pls, asx)

Sat, 24 Mar 2007

Small Home Renovation Project: Family Room Spot Light (continued)
Last week, I started to install a family room spot light that will be used to illuminate our new family portrait. Today I finished the job.

First I had to move our master bed away from our way about 6 feet and roll back the carpet (and carpet pad) to expose the second floor sub-floor. Moving our bed is no small task. There must be about 12 supports underneath the king mattress, not including the 4 corner posts. Fortunately, Kristy is pretty tough and was able to help.

After I had the sub-floor exposed, I set to the task of opening up a small hole over the top of the portrait wall. After taking my measurements and confirming them about six times (because I am borderline obsessive compulsive I guess), I made the cut... see below:

Unfortunately, I discovered that a heating run to the register in our master bedroom ran over the exact spot where I needed to drill a hole! There is always something to add a little challenge to home projects it seems... and this was it! After more careful measurements, I selected a site for my hole down through the ceiling of the first floor and (hopefully?) into the void space in the wall where I would need to drop my 14/2 cable. I got the drill out and made the hole... perfectly placed... w00t! With the hole in place, I pulled up some wire from the single gang hole that I made last week.

Next I made the 5" circular hole in the ceiling where I wanted the light placed. Now I needed to get the 14/2 wire from the hole cut out in the sub-floor across two floor joists to the circular hole. After some tricky cable work and with the help of Kristy, we were able to thread the wire through to the circular hole in the ceiling. You can see the finished cable run in the picture below (I took this picture, and the one above, for the benefit of my brother-in-law Scott, whose saw I borrowed... thanks Scott!).

Once I made the final electrical connections (the easy part), we had a working dimmable spot light to illuminate our new portrait. Here I am (below) posing in front of my work:

Job well done!

(Update Sat Apr 14 23:51:15 PDT 2007 // fixed thumbnail height)

:: Posted by rus on Sat, 24 Mar 2007 10:16 pm
:: Filed under /projects/around_the_house

[0 comments] [permanent link]

About
The Daily Biff
Rus Berrett's weblog

Contact Me
Email: rus at berrett dot org
AIM: biffordtdavis

Proclamations
Exaggerated opinions of my own importance. Proceed with caution.

Why I Blog

Buy Me Stuff
My wish list is my gift to you (yes, shameless, I know).

My Wish List

Subscribe
Subscribe to a syndicated feed of my weblog, brought to you by the wonders of RSS.

Categories
You can isolate posts by category using the following links.

about (1)

announcements (3)

annoyances (4)

contrib (15)

·babynames (2)

·blosxom (12)

·x10 (1)

daily_journal (974)

·2005 (184)

·2006 (280)

·2007 (263)

·2008 (242)

·2009 (5)

links (32)

·blogroll (3)

·bookmarks (3)

·gadgets (2)

·games (1)

·misc (2)

·news (4)

·rootbeer (2)

·tech (2)

·trivia (1)

·tv_programs (2)

·video (10)

media (118)

·galleries (104)

·2005 (23)

·2006 (18)

·2007 (17)

·2008 (27)

·archives (17)

·taiwan (2)

·music (5)

·portraits (9)

·berkeley (3)

·eliana (2)

·family (3)

·kids (1)

newsletters (4)

·christmas (4)

opinion (2)

photography (1)

politics (26)

·antiwar (2)

·domestic_affairs (2)

·editorials (1)

·election2008 (3)

·energy_policy (2)

·foreign_policy (9)

·opinion (2)

·religion (1)

·social_policy (4)

·same_sex_marriage (4)

pro_tips (2)

proclamations (1)

projects (280)

·around_the_house (3)

·attic_conversion (128)

·back_patio_deck (42)

·exterior_painting (11)

·garage_storage (4)

·maintenance (1)

·new_garage_doors (4)

·vault_removal (86)

recipes (61)

·basics (5)

·jam_and_jelly (2)

·sauces (3)

·breads (2)

·breakfast (5)

·desserts (14)

·cakes (1)

·candy (1)

·cookies (2)

·fruit (1)

·ice_cream (5)

·pastries (1)

·sauces (3)

·drinks (2)

·first_courses (5)

·appetizers (3)

·salads (2)

·main_courses (23)

·meat (14)

·pasta (3)

·poultry (2)

·seafood (4)

·side_dishes (4)

·snacks (1)

religion (3)

reviews (321)

·beverages (33)

·chocolate_milk (1)

·cola (2)

·dry_soda (2)

·egg_nog (5)

·ginger_ale (8)

·jones_soda (3)

·juice (3)

·milk (2)

·root_beer (6)

·sparkling (1)

·board_games (13)

·books (8)

·camping_gear (7)

·cold_cereal (3)

·concerts (2)

·food (20)

·breakfast (2)

·candy (1)

·cookies (1)

·desserts (1)

·fruit (1)

·jams_jellies (1)

·meat (1)

·salad_dressing (1)

·sauces (1)

·snacks (8)

·yogurt (2)

·movies (122)

·music (3)

·products (20)

·restaurants (62)

·service (1)

·software (2)

·symphony (14)

·theater (7)

·tv_programs (1)

·video_games (3)

shameless (6)

tags (10)

·christmas (5)

·sourdough (5)

tech (21)

traditions (15)

·cousin_preschool (3)

·class_pictures (3)

·fathers_and_sons (3)

·friendship_festival (2)

·hoa_barbeque (3)

·santa (4)

updates (1)

vacations (85)

·2005 (32)

·park_city (12)

·slc_summer (14)

·slc_winter (6)

·2006 (13)

·california (1)

·salt_lake_city (6)

·vancouver (6)

·2007 (17)

·cayman_islands (9)

·cedaredge (5)

·utah_winter (3)

·2008 (23)

·arizona (8)

·chula_vista (4)

·hawaii (6)

·utah (5)

Archives
Past entries are available for review.

Blogroll
These are a few blogs run by my esteemed friends and colleagues. My personal comments about the blog (and its author) can be accessed by clicking on the "wtf?" graphic to the immediate right of each entry (wtf = "What the flip?" as in "What the flip is grandma doing at the sand dunes?").

Family

Friends