How to Add an Overhead Light | Ask This Old House

[Music] now being on the first floor we could probably take power from downstairs however it looks like there's an outlet here I'd like to take power from here put a switch here which will control a light I think that's the best option that would be great all right let me get some tools and we'll get started all right I've shut the power off to this Outlet to make it safe now I can Mark and cut out for the electrical boxes the ceiling hole will be centered on the [Music] room the switch box is normally 48 in to center however I'm going to fudge it a little bit to make sure that there's reinforcement behind the tabs [Music] I [Music] I need to cut a notch into the wall and the ceiling to allow access for my fish tape and the wire that will control the light Brook I'm going to feed this fish tape to you go ahead and put your hand right up inside yeah and when it comes over to you just grab it and pull it through the hole yay got the all right pull it through good now let's get the yre hooked on it and get the wire pulled in okay all right Brooke I got to pull it just enough to get down to the switch here all right that's good now go down to the switch so this is the fixture that you picked out huh yeah do you like it I do I like it a lot I like how long it is which we'll put it this way to match the table Y and I really like these glass kind of look like a candle chimneys me too so there's 18 of these light bulbs all the way around they're candleabra light bulb which is smaller than the regular base it'll give us a lot of light spread it out and we'll put it on a dimmer now this fixture is heavy I need to mount this fixture to structure to do that I use this box on bars I feed the bar up into the hole when I twist the bar these teeth will bite into the structure and then the Box will mount to the bar okay we'll take this first and then I can hang the fixture off of that okay I'll take the light all right good A little helper that's good now we can install the switch these Madison bars pull against the back side of the LA and hold the Box in place you have to squeeze them with your pliers to finish them off the neutral is constant so I just splice the two white wires together the red wire ties onto the black wire going up to the light the power is Switched so the black wire coming up from the outlet ties onto the black wire on the switch and then we just splice the existing power feed to the new Switch these short pieces of wire are called pigtails and they'll allow us a way to reconnect the outlet back to this power supply all right Brooke power is back on go ahead hit the switch all right there you go oh wow that is really bright lot of light right yes you can also dim it oh great it's probably where you're going to leave it most of the time but hey now you get to see your food that looks amazing [Music] enjoy

Channel: This Old House

Views: 398,910

Keywords: lighting, electrician, chandelier, dining room, lights, house, diy, do it yourself, how-to, home improvement, home repair, this old house, ask this old house, scott caron, norm abram, tom silva, roger cook, richard trethewey, kevin o'connor

Id: 6r_Ni1gc5xg

Length: 6min 8sec (368 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 25 2016