The Light Project

Justin and I have been working on this little house project for quite some time now. Back in December, we purchased this beautiful lantern-style chandelier to hang over our kitchen table. Our friends, the Gibbons, have the same one and I have been in love with it ever since I first saw it at their house. Paige is an interior decorator and was kind enough to give us all the ordering info we needed to purchase the light. Unfortunately, once we received it, we realized it was going to be a little more difficult to install than we would have liked. We ran into several 'little' problems...  And when I realized just how drawn out the process was going to be, I decided to photo-document it.... of course :)

Problem #1: No electrical outlet above the kitchen table.
This is not a simple 'call the electrician' fix. The condo we live in does not really want us to dig around in the ceilings/walls to adjust the electrical connections.
Solution: We would have to somehow plug it into the wall outlet. This leads us to problem #2

Problem #2: The chain was not long enough to string over to the wall.
Justin has many strengths, but being 'handy' isn't necessarily one of them. Thankfully, his dad is! Late January, we had Ken come over to install a plug on the end of the cord and to help us hang the light from a decorative hook on the ceiling. So we hung the light and strung the chain over to the corner near the wall which would then allow the cord to hang down the wall toward the outlet. Unfortunately, we did not have enough chain to reach it to the corner.
Solution: We went back to the store the lantern was bought from and purchased additional chain. This in itself was a task, as the first batch of chain they sent me home with ended up being the wrong size/color. Upon reordering the correct chain, we discovered the delivery time was very long and didn't get it for at least 3 weeks. We were also very aware of yet another problem...

Problem #3: The cord was not long enough to reach the wall outlet.
Aside from not having enough chain to reach to the wall, the cord fell several feet shy of the wall outlet. We temporarily used an extension cord to reach the outlet.... it was not pretty.
Solution:  Justin's dad came through for us yet again, and came over tonight to lengthen the cord and add the extra chain.

Problem #4: Aesthetics... a cord hanging down the wall does not look pretty.
This was cause for much debate between Justin and myself, as I really, REALLY, did not want a bare cord hanging down the wall.
Solution: I did a little research online and purchased a couple cord conduits that would connect directly to the wall and hide the cord.

They say you are suppose to use a hacksaw to cut it the appropriate size... I improvised.

Problem #5: No matching wall paint to use on the conduits.
The condo was painted prior to Justin's purchasing it... with no extra paint left behind.
Solution: I grabbed a whole bunch of paint color swatches at Home Depot and did my best to match them up with the wall paint. Once I decided on the closest match, I purchased a tester bottle of the color... which was plenty to paint a little conduit with!

Problem #6: No switch to turn the light on.
Several of the outlets in our house are switch controlled... unfortunately this particular outlet was not. There was no switch on the light itself or on the cord.
Solution: We bought a wireless transmitter switch and outlet receiver. Which works like a charm!

(The transmitter/remote switch is the one on the left.)

After resolving the many problems, the project that began back in December 

was officially completed tonight!

The end result:

I think we did pretty good. :)