It feels like it’s going to be a looooooong time before I show you a perfectly finished space.
Hahahaha. Like I’ve every actually shown you a perfectly finished space on the blog. That’s hilarious.
But every day, progress is made on our new house. And every day, we’re one step closer.
And we have a superhero to help us. Come to save the day … in the electrical aisle.
Ryan and our dads have been working hard on the interior of the house – the big two things that need done right now are running all the plumbing and electrical.
These tasks are equal parts very important and incredibly tedious. The dream team has already run 1,000 feet of wire and they’re not even being done. (But they do tell me that the floor trusses are great for running wire.)
We are waiting for our power company to hook up the new house to electricity. To get ready for that step, they spent several days installing our basic “power grid” – the electrical box in the basement and the meter outside.
Then they moved to installing boxes for all the electrical needs in the house. Which meant I had to know where I wanted outlet and light boxes. My brain hurt just thinking about it.
Outlets
We had a good start with our outlets we needed.
After thinking about specific outlet needs, one of the best tips someone gave me was to aim for an outlet every four to six feet and one on each wall.
This seemed like a pretty good place to begin and seemed to work well for most of the rooms.
Lighting
Next, we thought about lights. I want a lot of light in this house – especially the open first floor, but I also want full control to dim. Our last house did not have nearly enough light so I probably went a bit overboard.
My dad thinks they’ll be able to see the house from space.
I say, “Hey there, astronauts. Come on over. Just follow the light.”
We went with a lot of recessed lights to give a flexible, even light throughout the main floor – in the living room, kitchen and dining area.
There are a lot of ideas and tips and tricks that the Internet will tell you about placement of recessed lighting in homes. But in the end, I think you just have to do what works for the space.
There’s no silver bullet.
For us, we aimed for a light every 4 feet or so (these are 9-foot ceilings). We will be installing dimmable LED light kits into these, so I think we’ll have plenty of even light and also the chance to lower the overall light level if necessary.
We also ensured we had plenty of distance between the lights and the fan to avoid the “strobe light” effect.
In addition to the recessed lighting, we’ll have a few other fixtures – pendants in the kitchen, a (gorgeous) chandelier in the dining room, some sconces and a chandelier in the stairwell.
Switches
And the final step was figuring out where the switches should go in the rooms.
This felt really overwhelming!
I did a lot of walking around the house to try to figure out how we will move through the house. This was a bit of a challenge without any furniture, but I think we came up with a good overall plan to control all the lighting in the home.
I think that open floor plans create a challenge – there isn’t a ton of wall space for switches between rooms. This was a new issue for me, but we figured it all out and I think we’ll have all the switches we need.
But you know I’ll let you know if I screwed it up.
Running wire
Who ever knew how much planning it takes for running lights and outlets?
Every decision made has been c harted out in a full chart – including which lights go to which switch, which lights, outlets and switches run to which circuit. And then when the wires are run down to the main box, the guys labeled each and every circuit so we don’t forget and can label the electrical box.
My two superheroes are on it..
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Amber @ Wills Casa says
Outlets and switches be damned! Did you put outlets in the exterior ceilings for Christmas lights? I don’t put lights on my house, but we use them for string lights. You probably already thought about that but wanted to check just in case.
Kim Woodward says
I’m still a little bitter than my husband exnayed the lights on the eaves. It’s a long story, but it’s not happening and I’m still not thrilled about it. But we have tons of exterior lights so it will all work out.
cassie @ primitive & proper says
i need a superhero to come wire my living room for a chandelier- can you send him my way!
Heidi says
As an avid holiday decorator,please tell me you added/are adding outside outlets for Christmas lights everywhere! It’s my dream to be able to plug in the lights we run along the roof lines etc where we ran them up high and not have to run those ugly extension cords to the outdoor outlets near the foundation and the doors. I won’t get that for a long time, so I need to live vicariously through others! Love the plan you put together for electrical and lights, that has to be so stressful even though it sounds simple, too many? not enough? are they all going to be in the wrong place once we decorate? Yikes!
Deb says
And an outlet below every window for candle lights! Oh how I wish I didn’t have to run extensions cords everywhere for my window candles…
Beth Ann says
I truly enjoyed building our house (and would do it again in a heartbeat – but we used a general and subbed out all of the work). When we built our house our builder had suggested putting our stair lights on a photo-sensor when I mentioned that I wanted step lights to keep on at night so no one accidentally fell down the stairs. best. thing.ever. I wish we would have done this to our outside lights as well.
squatch says
If you’re going with the recessed LED’s get the CREE ones from home depot. I literally bought every LED bulb at the big 3 stores and when hooked to a Lutron LED approved dimmer they all hummed except the CREEs. The HD dude claimed he used to work for CREE too and said they were the best. Not sure about that but figured I’d help you avoid a mass light bulb return.
Kim says
Interesting. Thanks for the tip. The humming would drive me batty.
Kim says
Squatch – your mom said you had your lights on an app? How did you do that?
Adrienne B says
If you screw up the switch placement, there is a fix! Check out Lutron PICO controllers and wireless switches… http://www.lutron.com/en-US/Products/Pages/SingleRoomControls/CasetaWireless/Overview.aspx
I use these in situations where I would otherwise need 4-way switches (or a bank of 5-6 switches in a row- too confusing!!!!).
Kim says
Interesting!!! These look super cool. I love the idea of having outside lights on an app to turn off before bed.