In with the New

After we removed the old lights, it was time for the new lights. We took a trip to Lowe's and using our gift card from Christmas, we decided on these babies in white & 4".

The housing looks like this. The metal box is just a casing to hold the wires somewhere so that they aren't all over the place in the ceiling. The metal things that look like wings hold the light in the ceiling. Push the whole thing in and the wing pop back out.


The white rim and light will sit on the outside flush to the ceiling.

Now, we could have saved ourselves the trouble of putting these lights in and just sealed up the holes and pretended there was never anything there. But like moths to a flame, we had to get all fancy shmancy and couldn't leave a good thing alone.

***Turn your electricity off*** before proceeding.


Keith and I took a basic Circuits class which was part of our Engineering course study. He's much more hands on, but I'm more theoretical so between the two of us we were able to figure it out. We were simply connecting to the existing wiring of the fluorescent lights. The tricky part was the way the previous owner wired it. 2 hours into it and lots of trial an error - Two lights, two switches, the tv in the living room were all on one circuit. One of the outlets powered all that. So there was this extra red wire that went from wall outlet to light which jumped to the third light which was on a separate 2nd switch or switches. That is also on the same circuit as the someday powder room. I know that makes no sense.


2.5 hours later when we had all the lights and switches wired properly, we turned some of the power back on so we could power the tools (not the lights!). Trace a circle where the light housing is going to go.


Armed with some cutting tools and googles, gently trim the circle out. Careful not to cut the wires (or your fingers) by accident. As Keith began chiseling away, the plaster from the ceiling was just crumbling down. It was awful and made a mess. That's why you should googles and a face mask.


Our first light was in! Yay! It looked awesome! It was so quick, clean and easy that we knew were going to be toast later! :(


To paint around the light, pop this part of it off by turning and removing it. Paint around the casing that sits in the ceiling and then put this sucker back in.

This was all well and good. We stood there admiring our new light and talked about how beautiful it was going to be once the whole room was done. But like I said before, when the first light went in so easy we knew were cursed.

Next: How were doomed from the beginning and why you should never say "Hey, that was easy!" when doing a home improvement.