Mike44
01-05-2010, 09:36 PM
Hey guys, Happy New Year!
Just wanted to share a little project that I did. Actually, I built it two summers ago in 08, but never got around to taking the 'final' pictures until now (had some problems with the lights, which I’ll explain later). Basically what I made is is a dropped, or lowered, part of the ceiling over the kitchen island where 2 lights are hung from. Originally when we bought the house, the home owner had the electricians install 2 recessed can fixtures over the island. They were nice where they were, but the problem was that the fixtures were centered to the middle of the cabinet you see there on the left in the 2nd picture, and not centered over the island. This didn't really matter with the recessed cans, but we wanted to change these lights to hanging pendant lights, so you can't really have the hanging lights un-centered on the island. Plus, I needed to have octagon boxes in the ceiling to mount the pendants. So here's what I did to get from the recessed can lights to the hanging pendant lights...while adding some value to the kitchen too with the extra dropped box feature over the island :).
So I drew up a plan to get organized. Here's my chicken scratch.
http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/8127/36190765.jpg
In the top right sketch, you can see how the new fixtures had to be pulled back about 10" to be centered over the island. I also planned on using crown moulding to skirt the box (in the bottom sketch); I wanted to use the same kind we already had going around our kitchen which dropped down from the ceiling 3”. I couldn’t use 2x4’s then for the frame since they would hang down too low past the crown moulding. So I went with 2x3’s – that gave me 2½” of drop, and a ½” sheet of drywall would get me up to the 3”. Then I planned on using a door jamb strip just to cover the joint between the drywall and the moulding. You’ll see what I mean in the pictures.
So I started after work one day around 6. Here’s our kitchen before.
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/6791/71658445.jpg
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/5164/11978729.jpg
Just wanted to share a little project that I did. Actually, I built it two summers ago in 08, but never got around to taking the 'final' pictures until now (had some problems with the lights, which I’ll explain later). Basically what I made is is a dropped, or lowered, part of the ceiling over the kitchen island where 2 lights are hung from. Originally when we bought the house, the home owner had the electricians install 2 recessed can fixtures over the island. They were nice where they were, but the problem was that the fixtures were centered to the middle of the cabinet you see there on the left in the 2nd picture, and not centered over the island. This didn't really matter with the recessed cans, but we wanted to change these lights to hanging pendant lights, so you can't really have the hanging lights un-centered on the island. Plus, I needed to have octagon boxes in the ceiling to mount the pendants. So here's what I did to get from the recessed can lights to the hanging pendant lights...while adding some value to the kitchen too with the extra dropped box feature over the island :).
So I drew up a plan to get organized. Here's my chicken scratch.
http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/8127/36190765.jpg
In the top right sketch, you can see how the new fixtures had to be pulled back about 10" to be centered over the island. I also planned on using crown moulding to skirt the box (in the bottom sketch); I wanted to use the same kind we already had going around our kitchen which dropped down from the ceiling 3”. I couldn’t use 2x4’s then for the frame since they would hang down too low past the crown moulding. So I went with 2x3’s – that gave me 2½” of drop, and a ½” sheet of drywall would get me up to the 3”. Then I planned on using a door jamb strip just to cover the joint between the drywall and the moulding. You’ll see what I mean in the pictures.
So I started after work one day around 6. Here’s our kitchen before.
http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/6791/71658445.jpg
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/5164/11978729.jpg