My Walk-In Closet Has New Lighting! (Plus, How To Patch Holes In Drywall)

I just like the Halo model, however there are a number of manufacturers of canless LED downlights to select from. And I at all times purchase those which have a number of completely different gentle/temperature settings as a result of I wish to set mine to the daylight (5000K) setting in order that my colours aren’t distorted. Right here’s what the lights appear like.

And as soon as you narrow the outlet within the drywall, the sunshine is held in place inside that gap with these two steel spring clamps (the orange tabs).

Every gentle comes with this steel housing for the wires. After eradicating one of many spherical steel knockout holes within the housing, I added a wire clamp to the outlet (which I needed to buy individually). And after stripping the yellow plastic sheathing from the wires, after which stripping about 5/8″ of sheathing from the ends of the black and white wires, I inserted the wires into the housing by the wire clamp.

After which I separated out the wires in order that the black wires had been collectively, the white wires had been collectively, and the naked copper wires had been collectively. I’ve two of every coming from the ceiling as a result of one wire is coming from the middle gentle (i.e., the unique gentle on this room) to feed electrical energy to this gentle, and the opposite wire goes from this gentle to feed energy the subsequent canless gentle.

When you’re solely putting in one single canless gentle in a room, you’ll solely have one wire coming from the ceiling. I used to be putting in seven canless lights all daisy chained collectively, so every gentle had two wires coming from the ceiling apart from the final (seventh) gentle within the chain.

Then I used a wire nut to connect all the black wires collectively (three black wires — the black wire contained in the canless gentle housing plus the 2 wires coming from the ceiling). As soon as I tightened the wire nut as tight as I may get it, I gave a bit of tug on the smaller black wire coming from the canless gentle housing to ensure that it’s safe. Generally these smaller wires don’t get securely twisted into the wire nut when wiring it with two 12-gauge wires. If it pulls out with a slight tug, I do know I’ve to take away the wire nut and take a look at once more till it’s safe. I repeated that course of for the white wires and the naked copper wires.

I at all times use electrical tape across the wires and the wire nut on the white wires and the black wires.

After which I rigorously tucked all the wires into the housing and put the quilt on the housing.

I positioned the housing within the attic on prime of the drywall and reconnected the sunshine. Then I used to be prepared to slide these two steel prongs up into the outlet to safe the sunshine to the ceiling.

When you’ll bear in mind, I needed to reduce three extra holes within the drywall in order that I may get the wires throughout to the place they wanted to go on this space of the room the place the roof was too low for me to do the wiring from contained in the attic. Plus, I moved the middle gentle over about six inches. In order that meant that I had 4 holes that wanted to be repaired within the ceiling drywall.

These holes had been six inches in diameter, so for every gap I wanted to restore, I reduce a bit of scrap plywood to 10 inches lengthy. You need to use any scrap wooden for this.

I positioned it into the outlet in order that it spanned the middle of the outlet and prolonged two inches previous the outlet on all sides.

After which I secured that in place utilizing two drywall screws.

That piece of wooden gave me one thing to then screw the middle drywall to. Thankfully, I didn’t have to chop new items of drywall for this. I had saved the spherical items that I needed to reduce out of the drywall, so I simply used these. However in case you’re repairing a random gap in your drywall, simply reduce the outlet within the drywall in order that it’s a really neat circle or rectangle after which reduce a brand new piece of dywall to suit inside that circle or rectangle.

Then I used this 10-inch drywall mud knife…

And I unfold some pre-mixed drywall mud over and across the space I needed to restore.

I positioned 4 strips of drywall tape into that moist mud to fully cowl the sides of the circle in addition to the screw holes from screwing the wooden piece into place…

After which I used the drywall knife to easy out and take away all the extra mud.

I left the repaired holes like that to dry for a couple of hours whereas I put in the lights.

Once I was completed putting in the lights, the drywall mud on these repaired areas was dry, so I went again over them with one other layer of drywall mud to cowl over the tape. I nonetheless have to sand these areas easy, however as soon as they’re sanded, I don’t suppose anybody will ever know there have been extra holes there.

I additionally swapped out the unique swap for a dimmer swap, after which I added a separate swap for the sconces.

So as to run that new wire for the sconces, I needed to reduce one other gap within the prime of the wall to feed the wires by. Once I initially tried to feed the brand new wire down from the attic, there was a random piece of wooden in the best way contained in the wall that wouldn’t permit the wire to cross by. So I needed to reduce the outlet within the wall to take away that rogue piece of wooden (it was a random piece of shiplap that had splintered off and was blocking the outlet) out of the best way to make room for the brand new wire from the sconces to cross by the outlet coming from the attic. So I now have one more drywall restore to do. 😀

All of that took fairly a little bit of time however simply take a look at the payoff! I went from having one dim gentle to gentle this room to now having all of this gentle!

I additionally put in the middle chandelier, however don’t pay a lot consideration to that proper now. That gentle goes to get a fairly large makeover, so it received’t look something like that when it’s completed. And naturally, it will likely be hanging over the middle island, which I nonetheless must construct.

The sconces are on a separate dimmer swap, so I can hold these lights on as a nightlight if I wish to. All the lighting is LED, so that they don’t use a lot electrical energy in any respect.

However y’all. Significantly. Try all of this gentle!

Right here’s what it used to appear like with that one terrible gentle on the ceiling fan.

And right here’s what it seems like now…

See how the outdated gentle makes the colour of the cupboards seems so dingy?

That’s why I like daylight bulbs! I can’t stand for lighting to make my fairly colours look dingy. So there’s no extra dingy coloration on this room.

And I simply love these little flower sconces.

I had initially deliberate to wire all the lights to 1 gentle swap. I’m so glad I went to the difficulty of placing these lights on a separate swap.

Anyway, I can mark off yet one more undertaking from my checklist. And this was a fairly large undertaking!

What an incredible distinction good lighting makes!

Right here’s yet one more take a look at the earlier than…

And right here’s the wonderful after with all the brand new lighting…

Subsequent up…THE FLOORS! I can’t wait to get this darkish stain off of the flooring and see what a distinction the lighter, brighter flooring will make in right here and in the remainder of the bed room suite. I’m hoping I can get to the sanding right now, however I’ve obtained fairly a little bit of cleansing as much as do earlier than I can lease the sander and begin sanding. We’ll see the way it goes!