How to Add Overhead Lighting to a Bedroom | All About Lights | Ask This Old House

[Music] it's got here's the light here in our master bedroom oh cool that's it that's it I'm gonna switch no nothing it's not too bright no it's pretty dark in here except where it is it what do you mean well as you can probably guess we've got a one-month old school actually thanks thank you sleep stirring a co-sleeper night so when we turn this on if you need to feed or change his diaper right in his eyes wakes right up y'all just won't go back that's not good now with the barber there's an unfinished attic it's easy to get to you can walk right up all right so what do you think and switch on the wall overhead light that sounds good to me all right so let me show you how to lay it out in a room like this it's real tempting to get the light and put it over the bed or but the problem is the bed's not always going to be there it could be here could be there could be here so we like to Center it in the largest mass of space okay so we got this wall to that wall on this wall this wall let's measure it out to each other all right so we've got 138 half of that is 69 so hold that up there after it I like to use a piece of tape instead of marking up your ceiling here so put that at 69 right about there boom now let's go this way okay oh yeah 168 all right so half of that is 84 so I'll adjust this here and move it over to 84 there you go so why don't we shut the power off if you want to run downstairs I'll tell you when this lights out that's it okay all right Justin let me show you what I've found here so we have two sets of wires two blacks and two whites at this location what that means to me is that the power comes in from the circuit breaker panel on a black and a white okay and then it gets sent out again on a black and a white to something else that needs power all the time like an outlet or something like that now we need to put a switch here but this is far too high for a switch we need to put a switch at 48 inches to Center that's about typical so what we're going to have to do or cut a box here and then what we'll do we run a wire from here down to this box that's going to give it its power and then from the box up the wall over to the light fixture and that's called a switch leg okay first thing we need to do is cut a box in so before I cut this with the saw I use this razor cuts to paint so it minimizes chipping as much as possible [Music] before we get any further I'm going to send these locator rods through the ceiling into the Attic that way there I can see if there's any structure that's in my way okay Justin up here in the Attic you can see over here where the flag came up I put a piece of white tape on it well that came up in between these two ceiling joists which is great because we can now drill the hole from below and mount the box over here now this is the one right above the switch box I need to find the top of the wall so that I can drill down and get the wire in there for that I've got to remove this floor board [Music] [Applause] okay Justin we're going to use this plastic box to support the light fixture in all the splices for the new light fixture going to go in here this will hold 20 pounds 20 pounds yeah so what happens is these metal brackets swing out and they push back against the drywall really lock in that in tight so to support everything a while okay we need to get a wire from here all the way over down here for that you're going to go in the attic and do some fishing okay a little bit more good all right hold it hold it and I got it okay that's good now let's do the center fixture okay [Music] [Music] this dimmer switch is designed to work with LED lighting [Music] [Music] [Music] look at what I saw in Justin so years ago instead of using a wire nut they would actually twist the wires together and use solder and then just tape up the connection and tuck it in the box we can't do that now we are going to cut this off re strip the insulation and use a why not displace our new wires in okay we have to leave this junction box accessible so I'll screw on this blank cover that can be removed if necessary okay Justin the powers back on once you go ahead and at the switch all right let's see okay oh that's really bright it's a dimmer - so okay oh that's perfect for the middle of the night yeah yeah those late-night feedings should go well oh yeah I could use some sleep that's good Jake I gotta pee yeah you're welcome [Music] you [Music]

Channel: This Old House

Views: 758,268

Rating: 4.8073769 out of 5

Keywords: this old house, how-to, home improvement, Episode, TV Show, DIY, Ask This Old House, lighting, bedroom, Scott Caron, electrical, overhead lighting, bedroom lighting

Id: ZBebljyOFLc

Length: 7min 24sec (444 seconds)

Published: Sun May 28 2017