How to Put up a Chandelier

Ron:

You know replacing an old light fixture can change the look of a whole room. Now the light in our kitchen was out dated, and it was pretty simple. But there was a surprise along the way. I’m not too bothered by it.

Lynn:

Oh I hate it.

Ron:

Now when I dreamed about having a home of my own…I imagined myself out here in the shop chisel in hand, the smell of wood wafting through the air, but like a lot of guys it not always my projects I get to work on.  My wife Lynn has a list of her own, and at the top of it , another kitchen project.  It’s not bad. It’s kind of Tuscanesque. It’s timeless. It’s a classic.

Lynn:

I really, really hate it. How about this, we’ll take down this timeless classic, and try another timeless classic. I’ll buy another one, you take this down.

Ron:

It’s like an old friend.

Lynn:

I’ll get you another friend.

Ron:

Okay but the new friend has got to be like an old friend.

Lynn:

Okay no problem.

Ron:

Well the first thing I want to do is run down to the basement, and trip the circuit breaker on this. Now I have worked on light fixtures like this, just by turning off the switch, but I always feel better if I just turn the power off the circuit breaker, and so no power here, I’m going to start to clear things away.

Ron:

Now this is a pretty simple job. All I’ve really got to do, it go up here and take off this canopy, and then expose the electrical box. Underneath. And then cut the wires. Oh I don’t believe this. There’s supposed to be an electrical box right up here. Now that box, would be attached normally if there was one there, to a ceiling joist or a piece of bracing, instead this bracket is just held to the ceiling with these 2 small plastic anchors, and the entire weight of that fixture was being born by these. Now I’m gonna move the light fixture from here, over to here, because I want to get the tables a little bit further away from the walls. I’m just drawing a circle there to give me the location. Now we’ve got our opening cut for the box. Now we’ve got to find a way to attach this securely, and I’ve got a special bracket for that.

Ron:

Now this is the bracket that’s going to keep that box secure in the ceiling, and I think the best way for me to explain how this works, is to use um, kind of a mock up of what the ceiling is like. Imagine that this hole right here is the hole that I cut in the ceiling. And we would be looking up at the ceiling this way, and if we could see the ceiling from the top, well it would look something like this. It would be a couple of joists then I cut across the top of the drywall. And then the box would fit right here, just like you saw a moment ago. Now the bracket installs from below. You actually reach up through the hole like this. Then once it’s in position. I’m going to rotate this bar, and as I do this, if you’ll notice the very ends of this bracket are expanding outward. And there are some very sharp pointed ends there, that are now just beginning to dig into the side of the ceiling joist. Next I’m going to take this bracket and insert it into the hole right here. This is, and it’s going to go up and over the bar that we put in earlier. And we’ll slide this up, to there, and we’ll take the, I’ll take the box, and slide it up into the ceiling, and over these 2 bolts.

Ron:

Now the wiring here is pretty basic, we’ve got the hot wire here the black one. Common or neutral, the white one. So we’ve got them all separated. Or free of the covering, now I’m just going to strip off the insulation, and give myself oh maybe an inch. Well I want to take care of this big hole now. This is just a strip of wood here, I’ve drilled a couple of holes, and I’m gonna put a little glue on it, like this. Now I’ll take a piece of wire, this is the one that we cut off of the wire that was sticking out of the ceiling. Run that through. And we’ll push the piece of wood up inside. And kind of pull down on it. Now I want to apply a little pressure here while this dries. Now for shallow repairs I could use something like spackle. But  deep hole like that, I’m going to use something else. This is called a setting type joint compound. That can actually be used for doing taping work. The thing is this sets up pretty quickly. Well pretty quickly. This versions 45 minutes, you can get it to set up in as quick as 15 minutes.

Lynn:

This is heavy.

Ron:

Oh you went for something very uh…

Lynn:

Well I wanted something very traditional. Sort of classic.

Ron:

Traditional? Classic? That’s what I was thinking of.

Lynn:

I don’t like things that are very shiny so it has sort of a softened patina.

Ron:

Pewter. Now I’ve made a temporary hook out of a piece of hanger right there, I’m going to hang the chandelier up so I don’t have to hold onto it. And, first thing I want to do is pass these wires through this threaded nipple, like that. And I’m going to take the wires, and go up through our bracket, and then back down. Okay now, we’ll make our wiring connections. Now this is our ground wire right here. Bring it around the grounding screw right here. Okay now so the ground wires attach to the fixture, and to the strap and to the box. All I have to do now is make a connection between the wires coming out of the ceiling and the ones going into the lamp. Fold them and put them up inside. Put the canopy up there. Put the retaining ring on.

Lynn:

Wow it’s up. It is working?

Ron:

Now don’t throw the switch yet, okay do you like it?

Lynn:

I do, I do, I love the shades, oh the shades got smoochy though, do you see how dirty they got.

Ron:

Oh yeah, they just came out of the package, you’ll have to take that back.

Lynn:

No but I think it’s pretty, very classy, it’s bold…

Ron:

Are you ready?

Lynn:

Oh yeah let’s do it.

Ron:

3,2,1.

Lynn:

Wow. That’s pretty. That’s nice, let’s see is it on dimmer.

Ron:

That’s all the way up right now.

Lynn:

Uh oh, that’s not dimming.

Ron:

I guess that means we’ve got to change the dimmer. That’s our next project.