Electrical Happenings

Back when I listed some of the projects on my 2012 “to do”list, I did not include several electric projects I wished to accomplish. Due to the fact that our house was once a grow house, our electrical panel is a nightmare and the lighting in our house is simply bizarre. Actually, our inspector mentioned this to use before anyone knew the real story behind the house. This weekend we tackled two of said projects.

One of the major lighting issues was in our family room/ office. In the center of the room there is an air vent and the fan is to right side of this. Due to the desks location in the life corner, the fan did not provide enough light when working at the computer. So we purchase lamps for the end tables…still not enough light! So after speaking to my father, we decided the best solution was to add a second fan to the left side of the center air vent. We have a similar set-up in our living room and love having the two fans.  Now because there was no electrical in this location we had to run some new wires up in the attic. My husband has had to crawl around up there before (it is very pitched with little crawl space) and was simply despising this part of the project. We again used 14-3 wire and ran the electrical over from the existing fan.

We had plans to use a pancake to install the second fan directly into a stud. However, doing so made the fan off center with the existing fan. So back to Lowe’s we went to purchase a Ceiling Brace and Box kit. This allowed us to secure the fan where we wanted it, between two existing joists.

We installed two double switches, allowing us to control both fans separately and also to turn on the lights/ fan separately without having to use the pull strings on the fan itself.

We have the same fan in every room of our house, a HunterRidgefield. We have had NO complaints and the color is very similar to our wood floors. While it might not look like much aesthetically, the difference in light is AMAZING. We only need to use the new light to provide enough “work light”.

The other lighting project is very aesthetically pleasing in my book, albeit a bit simple. We finally got around to installing our new light fixture in the dining room. We had guests over for lunch last week and we became increasingly aware of how much heat that ugly old light was throwing off, even with CFL bulbs! So that was motivation enough to hang the new light. I am officially OBSESSED with it!

 It looks so much better than I was expecting. It uses two less lights and gives off a warm ambiance.  Can you spot the rug under the table? I used some birthday money to purchase the rug I mentioned in my dining room post, so my “mini makeover” is well underway!