More Kitchen Work

We've been spending a lot more time in the kitchen these days. Something about that island makes us want to sit around and chat. Suddenly, Ryan and Hannah aren't fighting over who has to keep me company while I'm cooking.

The downside is that it highlighted (ha!) how awful the lighting in our kitchen is. The one source of light is (was) a big fluorescent fixture that looked alarmingly industrial; something you'd see in a State office building or something. Of course we have to replace it! The first order of business was to take it down and see what kind of wiring we were dealing with.

Ew.

Obviously it was time for some new wiring. So, since our attic is nothing more than a crawl space flooded with blow-in insulation, guess who got to crawl on her belly for about 4 hours yesterday pulling in new electrical cable?

Go me!

Here's what the kitchen light fixture box looks like from the top...

At least it was very sturdy.

But I replaced that black wire, and another one you can't see, with brand new 12/2 wire. It was quite a production up there, trying to dig down between the beams to find the wires and following them to their source. Then Ryan would attach the new wire to the end of the old wire in the outlet and the ceiling, and I pulled it all up. I am incredibly sore today. It was like those bootcamp pictures you see of soldiers crawling through the mud under barbed wire. Okay, maybe not that bad, but you get the idea!

Today we put in the new fixture and hope we did everything right! I REALLY don't want to go back up there today.