Pulp Deck

Pulp Deck

Got back into the swing of things this past week (aka, no longer under the “take it easy” orders after the recent procedure, however, seems full healing takes about 3 months, so we’ll keep an eye on things and take it as it comes) and it was time to plan out our lighting for the covered outdoor kitchen and walkway path to it (from the indoor kitchen) as we are ready to start closing up the ceilings!

For the ceiling over the outdoor kitchen area, we are going with recessed lighting fixtures, but remember, we have a sloped roof so to make that work correctly, needed adjustable gimbal (that’s what they call the actual light with trim) fixtures, meaning that the light bulb itself moves and can be made to point straight down at the deck, as opposed to being stuck to the angle of the roof slope. We also wanted to make sure that we had large enough lights to adequately “light up” the space. After a trip to Home Depot, 6 inch fixtures looked to be the way to go (we’ve used 3 and 4 inch units for the recent Bath Reno’s, the deck being larger than both of those), there just wasn’t a large selection to choose from with the adjustable gimbal. We had found one that looked to be a winner except it required a 6 1/4” hole to mount it. Guess what? That size hole saw seems a bit hard to come by (as in, they do not have them at Home Depot and not sure that they even exist). Our dilemma being, if the ceiling was sheetrock, not a problem, we could just use the sheetrock saw tool, but in our case, we’ll be going through tongue and groove wood bead board and a hole saw is just going to make this a lot easier. So, back to the recessed lighting section for another look and low and behold, Halo actually makes a 6” fixture with adjustable gimbal and solid spring clamps (it was kind of hidden behind an aisle display)…..and it only needs a 6” hole! And that size hole saw we do happen to have, so choice was made.

Now, of course, the placement thing came next. For some reason, calling a gut feeling, 8 total fixtures seemed like the way to go, just for a semblance of even spacing and not “over lighting” the area. We also have to account for the recently installed ceiling fan (did not want to be too close to that and create a strobe light effect) but also wanted to be practical and light the areas appropriately, more in the prep areas, less on the relax areas, you know, like mood lighting!

We’ve found recessed lighting templates to be super helpful when it comes to the placement thing (see adjacent pics), they allow you to get an overall feel and a place to aim for when running the electric wire. We bought a couple of the Halo fixtures just to pop them in as test units, just in case they were completely wrong for our purposes. Turns out, they are perfect and also come with adjustable light levels (went with one less than most soft seating) which is super helpful.

From previous remodels, we also had a couple leftover sconce lights (3 to be exact) and they looked like a direct fit for the covered walkway path back to indoor kitchen. Put them up and turned the switch on…..nothing! Not happy with that outcome, so did a quick search on the fixture to see if there were any additional “tricks” to these specific fixtures….nothing! Okay, maybe the bulbs are bad, replaced them….nothing! All along, and from the get go,, however, we did notice that the body of the lights had a small clear plastic obtrusion on top, sort of like a button that could not be pushed in. Then the light bulb went off in my head, could this be a light sensor? You’d think the install instructions or something on the box might mention that….nothing! Anyway, applied some electric tape over said plastic button that doesn’t push in and, what do you know, light came on! Problem solved.

And just in time as our delivery of tongue and groove bead board planking has arrived and we are ready to start putting the ceiling in, good times indeed.

Progress pics below, see you next week!