No More Cooking In the Dark

The following does not constitute a Fall project as I anticipated doing. But, my head is constantly full of so many different ideas that I should have known I'd diverge for at least a little bit into brand new territory! I have had lighting of this house on my mind since before the kit even arrived to build, so, today was the day to strike while the creative iron was hot!

I read the main idea of this project on a miniatures Facebook group I follow (I follow three and have NO idea from which I read this because I *think* it was in the comments of someone's photo). So, while I don't think I would have ever come up with this idea on my own, I am definitely proud of figuring out how to do it!

'Ready to see the kitchen lit up?!?! Here's the spoiler!

Oh, yes. That's some recessed lighting! Here's how it happened!

First, I obtained a new piece of foam board. While I have some older pieces stashed away, they are all warped. And, no one wants a warped ceiling. So, I sprung the less-than-$2 for a new piece. I measured the space where the ceiling would go in such a way that I could wedge the piece in and have it stay put. That way, when the lights burn out or I need to fix something, I can easily remove it.

After measuring the space, I simply cut the new ceiling piece with a metal edge and an X-acto:

From there, I removed the string of lights from the little girls' room because it's the only one I have with only 20 lights (don't worry, she'll get a new set!). For this space, 20 is more than enough. Then, I measured out where each would go:

My measurements are simply based on how many fit well on a side. Whatever was left over would just be run down the wall on the outside of the house and under the table to the on/off switch.

The holes are simply made with a regular-ol' hole puncher. If you do this project, experiment with punching the foam board to see where and how the punch will indent the board so the unsightly dents are on the side no one sees! In the picture below, I'm showing the side that is up against the existing ceiling (or, the unseen side). The side that can be seen is a little indented inward which works well for the recessing.

The next step was to paint the inside of the holes for the "can" look. It's kind of hard to see here, but it's there:

Then, I strung the lights to the holes one by one and taped the wire in place as I moved along. The tape will not only keep the lights in place, but I figured covering the wire was a good idea in case jamming the piece into its space scratched up the original ceiling:

I put some of the Elmer's putty on the corners just to keep it up against the ceiling:

It turned out that what I really needed to do was use a strip of putty all the way across the piece because, without it, there was just enough of a gap between the original and new ceiling pieces that light came through, and it looked really bad. So, I started wedging putty into the gap. I did it this way because I didn't want to unwedge the whole piece of ceiling if I didn't have to. I pushed the putty through the gap with the X-acto knife, cleaned up the edges and clamped it:

I have old gift cards between the clamp and the ceiling to prevent clamp dents!

This ceiling piece actually only goes to the end of the wall where you see the microwave (also adhered with the putty, by the way!). The tricky part of this ceiling design is the fact that I didn't wall off between the kitchen and the front entryway, so there's a lot of open ceiling space. My original vision here was that there would be a little ledge of new ceiling if looking at it from the front. And, I figured no one would care. While it did look reasonably good with the lights off, I had issues when the lights came on because, like the other side, you could see light peeking between the new and old ceiling pieces:

It actually looks better in the picture than it did in real life! But, I wasn't having it. Fortunately, I still had a piece of crown molding that I barely needed to cut to make fit and cover the gap!

That took care of that! (It's not perfect, so glance to ooo-and-ahh because if you stare, well, don't.)

Keeping in mind I did not want this project permanent in any way, I cut really thin strips of Velcro and attached them to the edge of the foam board. Then, I put really thin strips of Velcro on the back edge of the crown molding. Ta-Da! Up it goes, and it can easily come out AND go back in when necessary! I lined the top of the molding with the putty mostly to keep any little light from peeking through.

So, there you have it! I am SO happy with this! Here are two more views from the kitchen side:

Next? Well, I'd say what I plan, but it's not necessarily what I'll do! So, I'll let the next update be a surprise (even to myself!)!