Change A Boob Light To A Pendant, step by step

The evening after posting our plans for a mini-update to our master bathroom last Monday, Sherry had us in the car and off to hunt down the blue light fixture in her mood board.

It is a Shades of Light fixture that we hoped to find at a local lighting outlet called The Decorating Outlet (which is also where we picked up the glass pendants over our peninsula, Clara’s capiz chandelier, and the shade that we brought in around the chandelier in our office).

Sherry was nervous that our luck would run out and they would not have any in stock – but they in fact had not one, but two to choose from. They were half off the original price of $159, so for $80 we were soon headed home with a blue light to take the place of our formerly unglorious boob light (Ballard also sells a similar version for $189, so we were excited about our little outlet find). Still, at 80 beans it is certainly not the cheapest pendant light we have ever picked up, but for such an uncommon and cool effect (the seeded blue glass is truly remarkable in person) we were glad to shell out the dough to make it ours.

Part of the reason that we hoped to replace this flush mount guy with a pendant was so it’d hopefully look less crowded to the shower bar. Have we mentioned this room is compact? Well it is, which means a fixture that is centered in the space is fairly close to the shower curtain. Especially since this fixture was extra wide. We knew something with a smaller footprint against the ceiling would assist, and that something with translucent glass and a much smaller diameter would lighten things up as well.

Plus, as much as I was determined to discover a new solar system in the light’s swirly glass, we figured bringing in the blue pendant would be a pleasant shot of color in the formerly “builder basic” room.

Installing new light fixtures is old hat for us by now (we simply did three in the kitchen) so we figured we’d have this project knocked out within a few hours. But since clearly we failed to knock on wood or something, we uncovered this mess:

Do not see it? How ’bout we turn off the power and remove the old fixture so the giant hole in the ceiling cannot be missed?

This obviously would not jive with the new fixture’s smaller base. Unless of course we were going for that exposed rafters look. So simply like that our “install new light fixture” task go bumped below “patch ceiling” on our to-do list. Ah the joys of Hands-on, right?

On the bright side, we had some leftover drywall in the basement from patching the new opening in the kitchen which meant we did not have to run out to the store to get began. So I used a box cutter to slice a piece down to size.

And then broke out a drywall saw to cut out a hole for the fixture box that I measured. It was not the prettiest cut, but it’d do the trick, and the top of the pendant light would cover the hole for the fixture box, hopefully resulting in a pleasant seamless look.

To secure the patch to the ceiling, first I screwed some scrap wood into the ceiling that would provide a pleasant firm surface to screw into. One piece of wood went against the beam, while the other got screwed into the existing drywall.

Here is the new piece of drywall attached and looking all flush and fantastic-like. Except for all the cracks and sunk screw heads (be sure to sink your screw heads when it comes to drywalling!) that we needed to sand, spackle, sand, spackle, sand, prime, and paint.

So I sanded the edges a bit to make sure everything was smooth and there were not any weird lumps or bumps in the way of Sherry’s spackle job.

I do not know how certain tasks got divided in our house to become “mine” or “Sherry’s” (like how I consistently roll and she cuts in when we paint, and I typically sand but she spackles). I think some of it comes down to skill (Sherry’s has a steadier hand for cutting in and spackling so we have learned she gets better results). And some it simply comes down to things we enjoy more than the other (I enjoy using my Kreg Jig while Sherry’s getting on fairly ok terms with her sewing machine). But I would not put it past her to build something (perhaps a dollhouse for Clara) and who knows, I might simply sew something someday.

Anyway, here is Sherry’s first round of spackle drying:

She did two rounds total (a round being spackling + letting it dry + sanding it with a sanding block) both of which were applied in consecutive evenings after we got the bean to bed. The idea of doing two rounds is that you can build things up with spackle to bridge gaps, sand things flush again, and do one more round to make sure you do not miss anything (which could result in cavities where spackle was missing or raised portions that were not sanded down sufficient). And using a sanding block is pleasant because it is flat like the wall, so it does not flop around like a loose piece of sandpaper can.

So after a night of spackling and sanding, followed by another night of spackling and sanding, we simply had to set aside some time to prime and paint. Oh yeah and install the fixture that we originally thought was going to be a ten minute job. So the next night after priming our patch job (any raw drywall should be primed after it is installed before painting commences) we applied two swift coats of paint (Rockport Gray, as you may recall in this post). We used a roller to get it up there and rolled far beyond the area we had patched, simply to feather things out for a pleasant seamless patch job. By then it was way too late to get any decent pictures since we did not have a working light in there, but here is what it looked like by morning. See how much further the fixture box looks from the shower bar now that there is not an extra wide light up there encroaching on the shower?

It was at last ready for a new light fixture (the slightly rough area right around the fixture box will be covered by the top of the light for a pleasant clean look).

Since it was nearly four days since we began, we were more than ready to, in the words of Sherry, get on that already. Oh and here is the fixture in all of it is blue glass-y glory. It is reading as sort of a quite bright blue here in these pics, but in real life it looks more like the photo in our mood board above (it is a soft sea-glass-ish blue that looks strong with the white, gray, and sand colors that we have going on in there).

The cord is obviously waaaaay too long for our bathroom, so we had to cut it down before installing it. I used my scissors to put some slices in the outer white cord where I hoped the wires to end – I did not cut all of the way through since I hoped the inner wires to stick out a bit further. Then I folded it back and forth until the plastic-y white cord tore fully and I could pull the excess off. Update: We simply heard that a better approach is to use a wire stripper (which is pleasant and low-cost) since bending the wires back and forth until the casing tears can put unnecessary stress on the wires inside. Good to know!

This exposed the inner wires (which I cut to a length simply a bit longer than the white cord).

Then I used my pliers to gently cut the rubber coating off the pointer of each of the wires without cutting the wires themselves (that way I’d have something to connect to the wires in the fixture). When it comes to connecting wires and covering them with a wire nut inside the fixture box, there are likely some strong instructional videos on youtube to check out (we can never manage to take photos since it is a two-person job in our house).

As for why it is a two-person job, Sherry typically holds it up (supporting the weight of it so it is not tugging down while I connect the wires). One person can certainly hang a fixture on their own, but we find the two-person method to be truly helpful (and much faster). Thankfully it was a pleasant swift job now that the ceiling was patched. Which is a good thing since this process had already dragged out a bit more than either of us expected.

Speaking of dragging out, let us get to the goods. Here it is all hung up, and we are digging it. It certainly looks a lot less on-top-of-the-shower-bar than our past fixture did, and it is still hung high sufficient not to interfere with a tall guy like me (code in our area requires that it be hung over 6’8″ from the bottom of the fixture to the ground and ours is 6’10”). Oh and speaking of code, in our area there are not any issues with hanging a pendant at this height outside of a shower, but it is not allowed to be hung over a tub/in a shower (you know those fancy giant-chandelier-over-tub-bathrooms on HGTV and in glossy mags? they are typically not to code). So this is simply a general reminder to check out what is to code in your area if you tackle anything similar.

Of course the blue is looking more intense here than it does in real life, but in person it is soft and excellent against the grey paint and the white curtain – so we feel like it is a big check mark next to our goal of cheering-up our compact neutral box of a bathroom. It certainly adds some not-builder-basic personality. And the chrome trim and ceiling cover on the light work with all of our bathroom hardware (the shower fixtures and doorknob are chrome) so it fits right in.

In a ideal world the fixture would be centered in the toilet half of the bathroom, in front of the window. But since this is a fairly swift-and-dirty makeover plan we are trying not to get into anything too heavy duty at this point (after renovating the kitchen for months on end we are glad to lighten up with a few straightforward bathroom updates for now). Perhaps we will move it over a bit later in Phase Two, when we’d enjoy to redo the floor tile as well.

Oh and we did briefly worry about two things: 1) one 60 watt bulb would not be sufficient light for the room and 2) it would make the whole room look crazy like a big blue smurf. But happily, it casts more than sufficient light to keep our compact box of a room illuminated and there is no weird blue tint (we even asked in the showroom if that was an issue because we were so worried). Apparently since the bulb is clear, the light that it casts down and around the room is clear too. And the ceiling gets this cool soft seeded glass reflection that looks like a subtle starburst (we will have to try to shoot a picture of that). So it is quite flattering indeed. And not at all smurfy. Whew.

So despite the unexpected trouble it gave us (well, the trouble the ceiling gave us) we are truly glad with the update. And it is making us pumped to keep the changes (and touches of color) coming into this room. We think some blue, green, white, and gray art will certainly tie it in truly well. And Sherry cannot wait to hit the off-white trim with some bright white paint (it is hard to see in the photos, but the door trim next to the bright white light switch looks dingy and mismatched).

So now our bathroom to-do list looks a little something like this:

• paint the walls so they have some contrast
• replace the boob light
• paint the cream trim white <– it looks white in the pics, but the bright white light switch next to the cream door trim makes it painfully obvious in person
• hang some bathroom-friendly art
• craigslist the toilet and replace it with a classic white one
• do something to add privacy to the window
• remove the door so we can shave the bottom to allow for a rug/bathmat (and so it in fact opens past the floor heating register instead of catching on it)
• replace the border tile around the room (perhaps in phase 2?)
• replace the floor tile down the road (simply to break things up since there is so much of it)

What did you folks do this weekend? Did anyone add any new color to your bathroom or another place in your home? Or discover some type of hidden ceiling hole that was being obscured by a light fixture?

Psst- To follow our swift little bathroom reno from the start, check out this planning post, and this painting post. There, now you are all caught up.

Pssst- Apparently we have strong fully accidental timing, and today is “Light It Up Blue” day for Autism Awareness, so here is more on that. Spread the word!