Cabinets for Bathroom Remodel Arrive

 The new cabinets for the two bathrooms being remodelled arrived today.  They were first unloaded into the garage.

And then moved into the appropriate bathroom.  The two tall cabinets were the most difficult to move since they were too tall to go thru the doors.  They temporarily removed the base from one of them.  The other we were able to get in by removing the light bulb and cover from the hall light fixture just outside the door to the bathroom.

Once they were in place, they were attached to each other and the walls.  The master bath has the simplest layout -- all along one wall.

The center bathroom has two walls with cabinets.  The left wall is not planned to have a sink (although all the connections are still in place below it.

The right wall will have the sink.

The doors and drawers are to be delivered at a later time, probably within two weeks.  But this allows the counters and sinks to be put in while we wait for the doors and drawers.

New Light Wiring in Attic

 Encouraged by the replacement of the Loft light fixture with an LED one, we want to replace the attic light fixtures (currently 4 foot fluorescent shop lights) with LED lights.  A couple of the fluorescent attic lights work poorly, or not at all.  We found some inexpensive replacement lights at Home Depot (4 ft. 88-Watt Equivalent Integrated LED Utility White Shop Light with Pull Chain, Bright White) for $19.97. 

These lights plug into an outlet; they are not designed to be hard-wired.  This seems a trend, so it seems advantageous to convert the current wiring to provide plugs for the lights.

There are 5 fluorescent light fixtures in the attic; 3 work poorly, so we start with those. First we do the one near the chimney and HVAC system.

We remove the old light fixture, to get a bare ceiling.  

 

The wiring box is not suitable for an outlet, so we install a new box to the side.  We run the wire that went thru the old box over to the side and down into the new box, and attach it to an outlet.

Plugging in the new fixure.

Then we move to the other end of the attic, to the center light, and remove it also.

We install a new box to the side of this spot, next to the living room ceiling.  In this case, the box for the old light seems to be a junction for wires going to many of the lights, so we leave that wiring and add a short new wire that runs to the box and the new outlet.  We cover the old junction box with a spare cover we had.

Removing the yellow outlet tester, and putting on a cover plate, we can plug in the new light fixture.

 

Finally, we do the same to the light fixture over the kitchen, removing the old fixture

and running the wire back over to the wall around the kitchen skylight, we install a new box and an outlet.

We can then plug the new light fixture into the outlet.

We see that all the new outlets work correctly under the control of the 3-way light switches near the attic access door into the loft and the stairs into the garage. 

 

Replace Loft Light Fixture

 The loft has two lights -- a low round fixture on the ceiling over the bookcases, and a long fluorescent light fixture in the wing that goes over the  back bedroom.  The fluorescent light fixture had a plastic bezel to disperse the light from the two fluorescent bulbs, but I often hit it as I was going by and it broken and fell off, leaving the exposed fluorescent bulbs.  So I thought to replace it with a low-profile LED light fixture.

I bought a new fixture at Home Depot -- Commercial Electric LED Ultra Low Profile Wrap Light.  42 inches long. 3400 Lumens. 4000 Kelvin (Bright White).  Says it will last  50,000 hours of use (up to 45 years).

The first problem is removing the old fixture.  Leaving the switch off, we remove the old bulbs.

That exposes the two screws that hold the fixture into the ceiling.  Removing those and disconnection the wiring leaves us with a bare ceiling with a metal box and the wiring.

Mounting the new fixture requires connecting the three wires -- power, common, and ground.  This is made easier by connectors on the light fixture which just requires the wires to be pushed into a hole.  Then we mark where the two screws go to attach the fixture to the ceiling, drilling the holes, inserting the sheetrock anchors, and screwing the two screws into place.  The light fixture is then put in place, pushing the mounting holes in the fixture over the screw heads and twisting slightly.  Then we can tighten the screws to hold everything securely.

We test everything by turning power on at the wall switch, and then clean up.