It has grown on me!

Showing posts with label home renovations - electrical. Show all posts

Thursday, August 2, 2018

Before and After Home Office - 5 Home Office Updates!

My husband and I have been working on our home renovation. As I mentioned in my previous entry, we replaced old wall-to-wall carpet with new laminate flooring in our master bedroom, which is our home office now. Then, we continued to renovate our home office last month. These are the before and after photos of our home office. :)

Today, I'm going to share with you five our home office renovation projects (and some walk-in closet updates) we did after installing laminate flooring last month. :)

Early July 2018

5 Home Office Updates!

1. Adding a Ceiling Light
In this room, there wasn't any ceiling light fixture originally. In Japan, every room has a ceiling light, however, in the U.S., some houses don't have any ceiling light in a living room and bedrooms. My previous apartments which were built in 2008 and 2012 didn't have ones indeed. I guess that people in the U.S. love table lamps and floor lamps for those rooms. I told my husband that I wanted an overhead light in this room because it's a home office. At first, we were thinking about hiring an electrician, but he finally decided to do it himself. He also purchased this book, Black + Decker Advanced Home Wiring 5th Edition, to understand wiring. He told me that this book was very helpful.

Black + Decker Advanced Home Wiring 5th Edition

He made some holes in walls and ceiling. Then, he wired for a new ceiling light.

We purchased this flush mount light, Utilitech 19-in W White LED Flush Mount Light.

Utilitech 19-in W White LED Flush Mount Light

Because this room would be our home office, we chose the 4000k, bright white, for lighting color temperature.

Utilitech 19-in W White LED Flush Mount Light

This light is perfect for our home office!

Utilitech 19-in W White LED Flush Mount Light

Then, he repaired the holes in drywalls. I cannot believe that there were holes in the walls and ceiling. He did a great job! ;)

2. Painting on Walls and Doors

Lowe's

When he cut the holes in the walls for ceiling light installation, he kept a piece of drywall as sample of our home office wall, so it helped to find the right paint. When we went to Lowe's, we brought the piece of the drywall, and Lowe's staff created a matching paint color for us. :) We purchased this Valspar Signature Flat Latex Interior Paint for the walls.

Valspar Signature Flat Latex Interior Paint

For the doors, we used this semi-gloss paint, Olympic One Tintable Semi-gloss Latex Enamel Interior Paint and Primer in One. This was the leftover paint of our master bathroom renovation. ;)

Olympic One Tintable Semi-gloss Latex Enamel Interior Paint and Primer in One (Gypsum OL133 N32)

Fresh coat of paint helped the room so fresh and clean!

3. Replacing Old Door Knobs with New Door Levers

■Privacy Door Lever
As I mentioned in my previous entry, Before and After Door Hardware - From Door Knob to Door Lever, we purchased Gate House privacy door lever for this room.

Gate House Privacy Door Lever

■Dummy Door Lever for the Closet Door
For the walk-in closet door, we purchased this Kwikset Dummy Door Lever.

Kwikset Dummy Door Lever

After removing the old door knob, I decided to install the new door lever. :)

Kwikset Dummy Door Lever

I used this Hitachi codeless drill to make holes for screws.

Hitachi Codeless Drill

Then, I installed it.

Kwikset Dummy Door Lever

I did it!

Closet Door

4. Adding New Furniture

We purchased some furniture at our local IKEA. At that time, IKEA was offering a rare $25 off a $150 + in-store coupon, so we could save some money. ;) (Once in a while, they give away rare coupons on their official website.) We purchased BRIMNES Bookcase, LINNMON tables and ALEX Drawer units. Then, we assembled them.

5. Replacing Old Vertical Blind with New Horizontal Blind

This room had old the vertical blind originally. I didn't like that slats of vertical blinds clatter against each other in a breeze, and they were too old, so we decided to remove it.

I enjoyed looking at a large palm tree from this window without any blind for several days. ;)

There are many styles of window covering. We chose blinds rather than shades or curtains because blinds have slats for adjustable light control. We finally decided to install new horizontal blind. We ordered this white blind, Home Decorator Collection Faux Wood Blind, from Home Depot.

Final Look!

I put two table lamps with 4100k light bulbs for task lighting. I purchased these lamps, J Hunt Home Table Lamps, at our local Costco last year. The lamp features touch control turn it on and off. 　

The white magazine files and storage boxes are also from IKEA. They are FJALLA products and very affordable. ;)

The white artificial flowers, the white ceramic vase and the white stone pen holder are from T.J. Maxx.

and Walk-in Closet Updates...

We also installed new laminate flooring in this small walk-in closet and painted white on the walls.

■Ceiling Light

He replaced the old ceiling light fixture, which had incandescent light bulbs, with new LED one, Progress Lighting Mini Flushmount LED.

Progress Lighting Mini Flushmount LED

It looked similar to recessed downlight, but it's actually flush mount ligtht. He told me that it was very easy to install unlike recessed light installation. ;)

Progress Lighting Mini Flushmount LED

■Blind

Walk-in Closet (Before)

The window of this walk-in closet also had vertical blind originally. To me, it looked odd to have a vertical blind for this tiny window. That's why we removed it. ;)

Walk-in Closet

Then, we installed the new horizontal blind just like we did it for our home office window.

Walk-in Closet Window

We finally finished our home office and walk-in closet renovation! We also finished our master bathroom renovation last month. I'll write about it next time. :)

     These are my entries you might like.
■ We Finally Installed Laminate Flooring in Our Master Bedroom!

■It's Been A Year! - We've Done 17 Our Home Renovation Projects

■New Bathroom Sink, Faucet, Toilet, Towel Bar and Paint - Bathroom Renovation

■Before and After Wet Bar Renovation - Install Backsplash Tiles, Replace Outlet, Paint Cabinets and Decor

■Before and After Master Bathroom - New Shower Handles, Tub Spout And Shower Heads

■ Shower Tile and Bathtub Paints

■ Before and After Door Hardware - From Door Knob to Door Lever

■ Before & After Painting All Cabinets

■ How to Install New Outlet Cover Plate - Hubbell Taymac Revive Decorator Wall Plate Review

■ How to Install A Spring Door Stop

■ Before and After Kitchen Flooring - Easy and Affordable Peel-And-Stick Vinyl Flooring!

■ Built-in Trash Cans - Before and After

      My entries related to home renovations can be seen here.

      My entries related to flooring renovations can be seen here.

Sunday, February 19, 2017

My Kitchen Lights - Installed 3500k Downlights

As I mentioned in my previous entry, my husband removed the dated fluorescent lights in our kitchen early this months.

Last weekend, he removed the drywall ceiling and installed some wooden supporters.

Yesterday, he installed the drywall and made holes for recessed lighting.

Tonight, he finally installed these LED down lights in our kitchen!

We first tried three light colors, 2700k, 3000k and 3500k, for our kitchen, and we finally chose 3500k. :) The 2700k was too warm for a kitchen. The 3000k was not too bad, but since I often take photos in our kitchen to post them on my blog, I thought brighter is better for photos, and 3500k is the best for our kitchen. :)

       Next time, he will repair the drywall. Then, we will paint the ceiling, but we will paint it later since he will replace other ceiling lights in hallways. We want to paint the kitchen and hallway ceiling together. :)   I am really happy that our kitchen is so bright now because we had to cook there without ceiling lights for two weeks! :)

     My entries related to home renovations can be seen here.
http://itisapieceofcake2011.blogspot.com/search/label/home%20renovations

    These are my entries you might like.

■ Before and After Door Hardware - From Door Knob to Door Lever

■ Before & After Painting All Cabinets

■ How to Install New Outlet Cover Plate - Hubbell Taymac Revive Decorator Wall Plate Review

■ How to Install A Spring Door Stop

■ Before and After Kitchen Flooring - Easy and Affordable Peel-And-Stick Vinyl Flooring!

■ Built-in Trash Cans - Before and After

Friday, February 10, 2017

My Kitchen Lights

My husband and I have been renovating our outdated home since we purchased it last summer. When we purchased our home, we thought that the dated kitchen fluorescent lights need to be replaced with new recessed lights someday.

Before 1 (07/11/2016)

Last year, we painted cabinets, installed new cabinet pulls, installed new flooring and replaced the refrigerator in our kitchen. This year, we have been working on bathroom renovation for two months, and we were going to replaced the kitchen lights after bathroom renovations are done. However, we decided to work on the kitchen light replacement earlier because the old light didn't work properly. The old light took minutes to light after the switch was turned on. :(

Before 2 & After

He finally removed the kitchen fluorescent lights this week. We were going to find an electrician to have recessed lights installed, but he told me that he probably could do it himself. Now, our kitchen doesn't have any light fixtures! I hope our kitchen get new lights as soon as possible. (It's because it's too dark now!)