Basement Renovation: Lighting

We continued on with our electric this week and got some more lighting done. We officially have lights! Wiring the play room was the hardest because it has 2 switches which can both turn the lights on and off. This required special wires, wiring and switches (and took us most of the day to do). But none the less, it is done and we have lights in the play room (below). We have 4 can lights, and it is wired for a light/fan as well, in case we ever decide we want one in there.  

Then the rest of the can lights were much easier and simpler. We have all of our large can lights up in the main area and the entertainment area, there are 10 total! (below) Two of the can lights don't have bulbs in them (I didn't buy enough).

Notice it is nice and clean! That is what I spent most of my day doing! It was a MAJOR mess and so I swept and used the shop vac and organized tools. It looks so much bigger!

We have 4 new breakers and our breaker box is FULL! 

Chad spent some of his day prepping for dry wall by nailing in "blocks" in corners and on ceilings so the dry wall has something to be screwed to.  He also anchored all of our copper piping, so it won't rattle around and ran the cable wires for the TVs.

We left most of the wiring (okay, all of it) to the expert (my dad) and we mostly cleaned and made ourselves look busy. We did however, go around with an exacto knife and strip all the wiring down to make my dad's job a little easier. This resulted in the first injury of the Blackburn Basement Renovation. I sliced my finger =( It's not bad though, a couple band-aids and I was back at it. They aren't kidding when they say those razor blades are sharp! Anyways, we hooked up the light switches and voila, "let there be light!"

 Once we had new lights hooked up and working, we were able to take the old lights down, this was fairly simple and quick. Then we used the wiring that we took down from these lights and ran the wire for the bar lights. We can't hang two of our bar lights because....well.... long story short we are cutting a hole in the side of our house to get the dry wall in (I'll explain later) and the lights would be in the way, if they were hung. 

We did buy our electric fireplace as well this past week (above). We got it for a deal. It's the most "real" looking one we could find. It was important for it to have all the safety features and the different temperature settings, which it does. 

Wiring takes a long time, and it doesn't seem like you've done much after working for an entire day. I think I said this last week, but I'm reiterating it! We still have to hang the small can lights in the entertainment area and the two in the bar I mentioned above as well as the lights in the storage room and the HVAC room. We have all the lights hooked up that we need at this point (except the hallway/stairs) and will probably wait until after drywall to hook the rest up. Apparently, that's how it's normally done anyways (dry wall first, then lights). I didn't know that, but since we needed lights to work, we had to do it the other way around. 

We are taking next weekend off, my dad is going out of town. But we will be back at it the weekend after that. We will be recruiting some friends to help us move dry wall into the basement (through the hole we are cutting in the side of our house....). I'll let you know how that goes. But hopefully this week before he leaves, he can get the last of the can lights hung so we can pull wire to them and finish the lights in the hallway. Then we will be done with lighting/electric for the time being.

This Weeks Costs

Connectors for the can lights - $10

Switches - $30

Another Breaker - $7

More work boxes - $ 6

Fireplace - $168

Free Things that were we already had

Nail gun

Nails

Cable

Some wire

Drill & bits

Hammer

Wire Staples

Tape Measure 

Labor

This weeks total - $221

Project total - $2,531

Things I learned this week - Be careful when using an exacto knife! Also, I would be lying if I didn't claim to have learned a thing or two about wiring. I paid attention a little =) but it's very confusing.

To do list from last week:

1) We have to prepare for dry wall. This requires nailing in blocks (small pieces of wood) on corners and ceilings so the dry wall has something to be nailed to. 

2) Run the two heat ducts. 

3) Decide on our plan/design for the secret bookshelf-door and frame it. 

4) Anchor the new copper pipes and the a/c line so they don't rattle. 

5) Finish the electric

6) Buy the electric fireplace

Add ons:

7) Buy dry wall and move it to the basement.

I am not a professional and all my advice and tips are purely from my own experiences.