Adding Recessed Lights To My Closet (Plus, My Workaround For My Phobia)

Here’s the one single light on the ceiling fan that I’ve been working with until now…

My workday started off smoothly. I had all of the holes cut for the lights by lunchtime.

This was pretty easy to do with this Mikwaukee adjustable hole cutter (affiliate link). It adjusts to cut holes from 2″ to 7″, and it comes with this plastic shield that catches the dust as you cut.

It definitely made the process faster and easier, but if I’m being honest, I’d rate it 4 out of 5 stars. While the plastic caught about 95% of the dust, it definitely didn’t catch all of it.

Also, these blades seemed to dull fairly quickly. I was able to cut all of the holes I needed, but after about four holes, the cuts seemed to start getting rougher and rougher with each additional hole. And the blades kept coming loose, so I’d have to use an Allen wrench to tighten the blades after I cut each hole.

I think the tool could use some improvement, but it did the job. And it did it much faster and easier than any other tool or process I’ve used in the past to cut holes for lights.

I ended up cutting holes for two lights on each side by the cabinets, and one hole over each appliance.

I had someone ask me why I didn’t plan on adding three lights to each side in the cabinet area. The reason is because of this air conditioner vent on the left side which is right where I would need to put a light if I had added three to each side.

But I did add one additional light centered on the doorway. So the closet cabinet area will have five additional lights plus the center chandelier when all is said and done.

Things were going so smoothly at this point that I expected to break for lunch, and then come back and take about 15 minutes to climb up into the attic and run the wiring from each hole to the next. In theory, it should have been incredibly simple. What I hadn’t realized is that all of the area from the pink line to the window wall was in that area that juts out from the front of the house, and the roof over that area is incredibly low.

I had three wires that I needed to add in that section, but once I got up into the attic, I realized that it wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought. In fact, it took me a while to even find those two holes over the washer and dryer. I couldn’t even see them until I was looking at them head on. And then I realized that in order to get to them, I’d have to lie on my stomach, shimmy into that area under the super low roof about 10 feet, hoping that I could get down there while dragging three wires in my hand, and then shimmying back without being able to turn around. And, of course, I’d have to do all of that without putting a foot or knee through the drywall.

So I ended up reassessing the situation to figure out how to get the wires from hole to hole, around and above all of the ceiling joists and other framing. I finally ended up having to cut three additional holes that will have to be patched.

The good news is that patching those holes will be pretty simple because I have all of these perfect little circles of drywall that I can use to fill them.

Anyway, these are the lights that I’m going to use. They’re not technically recessed lights. They sit flush to the ceiling.

And since they’re only 1/2-inch thick, you can put them virtually anywhere, even directly under a ceiling joist.

This is the brand I use. They have five different temperature settings, and I always set mine to the 5000K (daylight) setting.

So by the time I got all of that done, I was pretty much wiped out both physically and mentally. You can see the holes that need to be patched here.

Also, by the time I got all of that done, I almost talked myself into leaving the center light right where it is. The challenge here is that the wire that comes from the switch is too short to move that junction box back six inches.

I tried to make myself be okay with it, but about an hour later, after my nerves had calmed a bit, I decided that I’m just not okay with it. You can see how off-center it is with the center sections on the side walls.

So I went ahead and removed the junction box. I thought that would be pretty simple, but it was a bit of a challenge getting it off since it had these side areas that jut out with the nails.

I mangled the drywall a bit getting those out of there.