More Garage Lighting and Upcoming Projects

E and I have decided that our next big project will be the "headboard" for our bed. I put that in quotes because it isn't exactly a headboard but I can't think of a better description either. It's actually more like wall art over and around the bed. Confused yet? The picture below is a rough sketchup of the design.

There are actually a few details missing. There will be small tables on each side of the bed cantilevered out from the boards there and some pendant lights that hang down above the tables. Again, hard to explain but we hope to have it done soon so I should be able to put up some pictures. I've already got the middle boards ready to be stained. I cut keyholes in them for hidden mounting to the wall.

The reference to more garage lighting is that I installed two more lights in the garage like the others. I wired them to the existing switch so I can get some pretty good light in there. The motivation was that we are in a pretty rainy season but there wasn't enough light to stain wood with the garage door closed. There is plenty of light now!

The other "upcoming project" I'm actually just about to go do. Because of tree roots, there are some steps in our sidewalk and the community association has been complaining. There is a whole frustrating story there because the steps in our sidewalk are nothing like some of the others around the neighborhood. We figure that someone on the board must live on our street. Anyway, I bought some concrete and I'm going to try to build "ramps" like the association requested. We'll see how it goes.

Lighting Projects

Over the last couple of weeks, I've done three lighting projects. First, we had these really ugly outdoor lights on the back patio that we wanted to replace but hadn't gotten around to yet. One of the bulbs burned out so that was our motivation to take care of it. Sorry I don't have any before pictures but I've included an after picture. Not that it is particularly exciting, but there is also a picture of the other one in the album.

The second project was a little more involved. E got a new dining room chandelier for Christmas to replace the beautiful thing you see on the left (in mid-removal). Of course, it wasn't as simple as just replacing the existing one; it had to be moved as well so I started by patching the existing hole. This is the first time I've done this before so I'm pretty happy with the results. If you look closely, you can tell where it was but it certainly doesn't stand out. Anyway, I used this real popcorn ceiling stuff that came in a tube and just had to carefully apply it to get a similar texture to the rest of the ceiling. Next, I moved the ceiling box and cut a new hole for the new chandelier. Here are a couple pictures of the finished job.

The last project was simply replacing the light over my workbench in the garage with a couple of new lights. The old one was broken and only occasionally worked. It's nice to actually be able to see out there now. Here are the before and after pictures.

I'm actually planning to do a little more lighting work coming up. I am probably going to put another one of the outside lights under the patio and I've got a couple more lights for the garage. Both of those projects require running wire though so I might not get to them right away.