THE CAVENDER DIARY

Elated.

That’s the best word to describe how I feel. Extremely Happy tossed together with an equal amount of Extremely Proud.

Maybe I should start at the beginning of the project

August of last year, we clad the walls of our garage in fencing cedar…

Then hung our old kitchen cabinets….

And taped, bedded, and painted the ceiling…..

Now that the garage is mostly finished, I’m set to install hanging factory pendant lights.

We have a vision of something like the pendants in these “warehouse-ISH looking” spaces.

(images via I Want That, Chad’s Drygoods, Archinect, and tymattson on Instagram)

We like they way they are gridded/spaced out on the ceiling.

Here’s what we found……at an unbeatable price.

The Hampton Bay Brushed Nickel Warehouse Pendant

Someone at the Home Depot marked the lights up from 24.98 to 29.88, but forgot to change the sign on the display model.

I seized the opportunity while I had it, and demanded kindly asked the store to honor the sticker price.

…and they did. Score!

Doesn’t seem like a big difference, but that’s almost 5 bucks each (we needed 4) and that’s about 20 bucks total.

20 bucks will buy 2 Edison Bulbs. (and it did, BTW)

We had gift cards for H-Depot left from Christmas….so out-of-pocket on this was around 6 bucks total. To-Tal.

Barn Light Electric sells some Killer fixtures……..with Killer price tags to match. (About $150 each……4 times 150, plus shipping…..UUUgghhh, you do the math.)

That’s why we went to Home Depot.

But, Barn Light Electric also sells the protective cages separately. Like the red one below……..Which means that we can always add those later on.

Can?

I mean that we WILL add them later.

Maybe red….maybe galvanized, We shall see.

Our H-Depot lights actually look pretty close to those in our inspiration pictures, except that they are brushed nickel. We simply need to spray paint them black so they look more like porcelain.

And……….Don’t we just love to spray paint things black around this house.

Semi-gloss black this time, I sprung for the $3 can of Rustoleum for this project. (up that “out-of-pocket” to 9 bucks now)

Here’s Jamie showing just about where they will hang in the garage…

It’s hard to tell from this picture, but all 4 will cover the ceiling in the garage quite nicely.

Why on Earth would someone mount the only light fixture in the whole room directly over the garage door opener??? It casts the perfect “garage door opener shaped” shadow down on the floor.

Don’t get me started.

My brother Ben had suggested that I run the electricity through conduit along the wall and ceiling like in a loft space, but I opted to just mount the lights directly on the ceiling with “Old Work” PVC ceiling boxes (“Old Work” means that they are going into existing drywall. I just cut a round hole in the drywall with a steak knife and slip the box inside. Then there are 3 screws that expand and hold the box to the ceiling (with all the neat little wiring hidden from view safely in the attic.)

In order to hide all the wiring in the attic, someone (i.e. Me) has to physically go into the attic to run the power lines from box to box.

That was my plan of attack……..

Now I’m not complaining, but I should mention that I am 6’2″,  slightly over 230…..I’m a big guy. ….and our attic wasn’t exactly designed for big guys to work in.

The 2 electricians that we’ve had do work up there have been half my size.

Here’s a shot of the area I had to crawl through, CRAWL mind you, to reach my 4 mounting boxes over the garage.

Yes, I did have to shimmy under several low beams.

Yes, that is fiberglass insulation.

Yes, I did cover myself in a sweatshirt, jeans, gloves, and a mask since I would be crawling through/over all that insulation.

Why, Yes, it was unbearable hot with all those layers in late May.

And No, I don’t regret a minute of the sweat that it took…………………….They are everything that we wanted them to be.

Now, where was I with this post…oh yeah,

ELATED