The Master Bathroom Project | Wiring New Lighting (Part 4)

PART 4: Now we are onto the hard stuff — wiring for our new lighting! Check out parts one (the master bathroom design), two (removing the vanity mirror) and three (refinishing the cabinets) in this series about the Master Bathroom remodel project if you haven't already.

As I mentioned in my lighting post, there are 4 different kinds of interior lighting: ambient, task, decorative & display. Our master bathroom already has decent ambient lighting with the can lights over the tub & shower, as well as the wall lighting over the vanity. But now its time for the fun lighting!

We wanted to add some task wall lighting between the mirrors. The hubby needs some additional lighting for shaving and I need it for my makeup. After watching the Kichlers lighting video, I also decided that I wanted to include some decorative back-lighting around the mirror. So we bought LED rope lights to line the backs of the mirror in order to project some light outwards making the mirror appear to be floating.

Great! There's the concept, but making it a reality is another story. Wiring doesn't just appear out of nowhere.

While I love to DIY, I felt like the probability of me killing myself through electrocution was pretty high. So we asked a professional (and friend) Jason Sanchez of Oak Electric in Menlo Park to help us out. He did all of the electrical work and did an amazing job!

I don't know what tool this is, but I want one! It cuts circles.

Measuring the distance of the studs

Putting the plate over the hole for the wall sconce.
We will be stringing the electrical connectionsthrough this soon.

Figuring out the wires in the switches — what goes where so that we can cap everything off.

To the attic! We needed to string the new wires — connecting the switch to the wall sconce — through the attic to avoid studs and any other built-in materials.

It sure was dark up there, but surprisingly clean.
We drilled another hole in the ceiling to string the wire from the switch to the sconce.

Grouping the wires so that they can connect to the new switches

Now its time to cut holes for the outlet placement for the LED rope lights.

Connecting the outlet wires to the sconce wires so that they are all on the same switch.

Covering additional holes in the wall that were made while we were figuring out the placement of the outlets.

Jason also let me tag along, so I learned a lot about electrical wiring to the point where I think I feel comfortable enough to give it a try on my own in the future. However, I cannot describe the process to you yet because I know none of the technical terms, so there won't be any DIY steps in this blog post. (Plus, I don't want to be held responsible for any hospitalizations.)

But here are some tips for a small job like ours in preparation of an electrician coming.

1. Mark the areas on the walls where you are putting your new fixtures or outlets. Electricians are not designers. If you have already planned out aesthetically where certain things should go, then mark it. We just measured where the wall sconce back plate will sit on the wall in pencil and then Jason was free to drill anywhere within that area. Just make sure that it's not on top of one of the studs, which are 16" apart.	"X" marks the spot!
2. Determine whether you want an additional switch for the new lighting. We decided to put our new task and back-lighting on a new double-stacked switch. This took a bit more time to install because we now had to string the new wiring through the attic because the switches and new outlets were nowhere near each other. We initially wanted to add a 4th full switch, but because of space constraints, we replaced one of our full switches with the double-stacked switch.	We added the double stack switch on the right
3. Purchase your lighting ahead of time so that you can inspect what kind of electrical outlets are needed. In our case, the LED rope light power plugs were 3 inches long (probably because they have a built-in converter)! So we had to buy recessed outlet boxes so the plugs would not stick out as far.	Recessed outlet boxes for LED lights

And there you have it!

Next up, dual-tone painting!

{Rashida}

PS: Do you have motion sensors in your bathroom? Did you know you can adjust the timer and the distance to which it picks up motion? Jason changed the distance so that it picks up motion in longer ranges. No more trying to do "the wave" in the shower after the lights shut off on me! Woohoo!