BWW Project #34 Garage Ceiling Lights

 BWW Project #34: Garage Ceiling Lights

The garage has previously been lit by only a single bulb in addition to a light on the garage door opener that is the equivalent of a Christmas bulb behind a piece of dirty plastic, and that only stays on for a few minutes after the door is operated.

We originally thought about lights on the walls near the front and rear man-doors, but the one in the front would be difficult to get power to since the wall is drywalled and the source has to come from somewhere outside the studs that enclose the switch.  The switch is also a two-way, which is nice, but which complicates taking power from it to another switch and light that would be independent.

In the end we decided upon two more ceiling lights, making a bank of 3 altogether.  This was not without its own problems, because the garage ceiling is drywalled and the existing light lines up with the point where the truss joints above come down in a V.  I cut holes for the two additional lights before the ceiling was painted, and removed the existing light down to the box.  Remember that this is a two-way, so the added two lights will have to be in parallel with it.  It was difficult to knock out holes in the metal box, but I did.  The north side was right up against a truss, so no help.  I went above and knocked a hole out.  

Feeding wire in, I was able to get it to jump the first truss but could hear it bouncing around between that and the next truss space.  It wasn't going to get over it and into the space where I could search for it with my forearm.

Next best plan: wire the two additional lights on the outside.  It's just a garage after all.  I punched small holes in the drywall, got some 14-gauge wire and went through the holes and into the boxes I installed.  Same thing on the existing light box, which resulted in two more wires coming down through it.  I was able to strip the wires and splice everything together with the two-way connection already in the box.  It all stuffed neatly up into the box and the light fixture went back on and covered it all up.  The new fixtures on the other ends were quite easily connected.

Then I used silicon caulk to make a nice seal around any holes and spaces around the fixtures.  It all looked great.

After a day for the silicon seal to dry, I put wire covering, just like I did with the wires of the garage door opener, over them and trimmed back so that they covered the 14-gauge completely from fixture to fixture.  Peeling the protective coating over the adhesive strip, they could then be pinned to the ceiling and the whole thing looked pretty nice.

Another coat of paint will be going on the ceiling and the wire cover strips will get this coat and blend right in even better than they do now.