Remember when we showed how clean and polished our kitchen looked right after we finished grouting?
And then, not long after, the chaos set in?
The room is back together now, and we made a lot of lighting changes to brighten the space and improve function.
Yes, the ceiling looks a little like Swiss cheese at the moment, but it’s all part of getting a brighter, more usable kitchen.
Lighting truly changes a room. Even after installing new white counters and painting the cabinets, our kitchen still lacked good, practical light. The peninsula was noticeably dark, the sink area felt harsh and fluorescent, and the rarely-used ceiling fan created an annoying low-flying noise during dinner prep. So we removed the fan and the old fixtures and prepared for an electrical update.
Here’s a money-saving tip: do as much prep work for the electricians as you can, since they charge by the hour. We always remove old fixtures ourselves after turning off the power. Marking ceiling locations in advance also saves time—no one wants to pay an electrician to watch you decide where to put lights. For the pendant locations above the peninsula, John stood on a stool while I held glass jar lids to visualize placement. It’s a simple, low-tech trick that helped us pick the spots quickly.
We used small pieces of painter’s tape to mark the intended fixture boxes. We didn’t need to decide pendant heights yet since we’ll install the actual fixtures ourselves later. I also climbed onto the dining table to mark the new overhead location there.
We have three rooms without overhead lighting: the living room, sunroom, and dining room. The dining room gets the most evening use, so adding a ceiling light there made sense. When the electricians were already at the house, we asked them to handle multiple rooms to avoid another service call later.
Previously, the electricians suggested four recessed can lights for the cooking area to replace the two fluorescent fixtures that flanked the fan. We marked those locations with Xs on painter’s tape, placed just outside the old fixtures.
We also had them add an above-counter outlet to the right of the fridge, which will be handy for mixers and small appliances. There’s already an outlet near the peninsula that we use for laptops, so this additional plug improves convenience on the opposite side of the kitchen.
Here are the four recessed lights installed in place of the old fluorescents and the removed fan. The new layout provides much more even, task-focused lighting for cooking and prepping.
For anyone local who wants a recommendation, we used S.J. Ryan Electric. They’re a solid two-person crew who move efficiently and are reasonably priced. In about five hours they completed a long list of updates:
- Installed four recessed can lights
- Terminated the two old fixture boxes that served the fluorescents
- Terminated the fan fixture box
- Added an above-counter outlet next to the fridge
- Installed two fixture boxes over the peninsula
- Terminated an old pendant box that was awkwardly placed a foot left of the new locations
- Added a fixture box and switch over the dining table
- Centered a fixture box over the sink (the previous light had been about 6 inches too far left)
Note: ignore the photos where the tile and paneling still meet the ceiling—crown molding will hide those seams soon!
The two-person crew charged about $75 per hour, so the labor came to roughly $375, with materials costing around $80. For that investment we got a major room upgrade: four recessed fixtures, two new pendant locations over the peninsula, a centered light over the sink, a new counter outlet, and a fixture and switch for the dining room. They also safely terminated circuits and removed wiring for fixtures we no longer needed.
I like sharing prices because electrical work often seems more expensive than it really is, but doing prep work ahead of time, hiring a two-person team, and having accessible attic space (we have a ranch-style home) can keep costs down. Two-story houses can be trickier because there’s less attic access above the first floor.
So that’s the electrical work we had done. It’s a big improvement from the last time we had electricians out.
Next steps: pick pendants, fill the ceiling holes, and install the new fixtures. We’ll share details as we progress. (Update: we found pendants and have hood information to post—more on that soon.)
On a lighter note, this weekend we received a large FedEx box containing our final book manuscript—375 pages of one-sided, double-spaced proofing copy. Holding that physical manuscript felt surreal, and was definitely a highlight of the weekend.
And a quick, heartwarming update: one of the finalists in the Ikea Life Improvement Project we mentioned earlier, reader Melissa Matthews, won. Melissa, the mother of a child with Down syndrome, plans to expand programming at the Frankie Lemmon School in Raleigh, NC. With her teaching background she’ll bring more technology and therapy tools into the classroom and create a website to share these techniques with other educators. We were so moved by her story and thrilled to hear the news.