How to attach a chandelier to the ceiling?

This tutorial is a great way to add a ceiling light without having to add or modify existing wiring inside your walls and ceilings.

It's a perfect solution for renters in older homes, and a great way to add a fun fixture to a room with difficult lighting (like many professional offices where fluorescent lighting is the only source of overhead light). ).

When I sold my house and moved to a studio in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood, I even changed the method to protect a rental deposit.

Room lighting without electrical box

In older homes, builders often did not install wiring for a ceiling light in common areas like living rooms. It was fashionable at the time to have lamps to warmly light a living room, but in today's versatile living rooms, most people prefer a mix: lamps to create ambiance and a ceiling light to illuminate completely the piece on demand.

The Hawk Hill salon is of the first category. Having to turn multiple lamps on and off, what I really wanted was a switch by the door to control my living room lighting - and I had no intention of opening the box. Pandora by having an electrician run new wires through Hawk Hill's 90-year-old plaster and lath walls. It took a bit of research and creativity, but I found a way to have it both ways using the quick DIY method outlined below. Now, when you flip the wall switch in Hawk Hill's living room, a chandelier and lamp come on and brighten up the room. Excited about the results for a few months now, I thought I'd take a few minutes to share instructions for installing a wireless switch to illuminate your own den of darkness.

How to hang a chandelier in a room without ceiling light wiring:

List of supplies:
- A hanging chandelier.
- A wireless wall switch
- A stud detector
- ceiling hook with drill (requires only a screwdriver for assembly) OR ceiling hook with toggle fins (requires a drill for assembly)
- cable cover

Step 1: Choose a fixture:

I chose a chandelier (of course!) but any light fixture designed to hang should work (i.e. a modified pendant or drum shade style light fixture should work).

Step 2. Convert wiring connection

I've previously published a popular blog post on how to convert a light fixture into a plug-in light, but for optimal safety, you'll want to convert that light fixture a little differently than this method.

Since you'll need a long cord to run from the ceiling to the outlet, you'll need to splice the fixture wires to the male end of a heavy-duty extension cord. An electrician can help you with this project, or you can consult an expert guide (which I'm not!) on how to connect electrical wires and cords.

Step 3. Install a Strong Hook on the Ceiling

You will need to install a ceiling hook for your new light fixture. As light fixtures can be heavy and particularly dangerous if they fall, it is very important to use a good quality hook and anchor it to a ceiling joist or beam. I like this heavy-duty, easy-to-install ceiling hook.

Ceiling joists are essentially "studs", but in the ceiling you can locate a joist just like you would a wall stud. Any stud finder or any number of tips you can find through Google should help you locate a joist to install a hook for your light.

If you can't find a stud or there isn't one where you want to install your light, ceiling hooks with "rocker wings" should be able to hold any lighting fixture weighing less than 20 pounds if installed properly on cavity wall, plaster and lath, or mid-wall drywall.

Step 4. Hide or disguise the cord

Once your light fixture is rewired and your ceiling hook is installed, installation can be as simple as hanging the light fixture, but I prefer to think about how to hide or cover the cord. With your lamp hanging from the ceiling, the cord will be very visible. For this project, I chose a velcro chandelier cord cover to make my extension cord a little less visible.

Option #2 to hide the cord: Use one of the amazing extension cords disguised as manila rope.

Next, you'll need to think about how your cord will run down the wall to an outlet. Can you hide it behind molding? Hide it around a photo frame?

You can paint your extension cord to blend in with the decor. To easily paint a cord, simply place a plastic sandwich bag over your hand, place an old sock over the plastic bag, then drop a few tablespoons of paint into your gloved palm. You can paint an extension cord in moments by pulling the cord through your paint-filled glove. The exposed section of my cord is painted Wythe Blue to match the walls.

Step 5. Adding and Configuring a Wireless Switch

In step 5, you will have a ceiling light in your room that was previously lit by a lamp, but you will be limited to turning the new ceiling light on and off by plugging and unplugging it. To add an easy-to-use wall switch.

This product consists of two parts: a wireless switch (basically, a remote control) that you attach to the wall, and a remote-controlled socket that turns the light on or off based on the signal sent by the wireless switch.

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