New Kitchen Lights

Craig has been complaining that we haven't had enough light in the kitchen since we remodeled. I was so over electrical stuff by the time we finished, I just didn't have it in me to wire one more thing. I went to Lowe's today to get some light bulbs and stopped by the lighting section and started thinking, (That's a dangerous thing) I thought pendant lights would look great over the sink, that space has always looked like it needed something, anyway, I took Craig back to Lowe's to show him my idea and he was all for it!

Of course I wasted no time getting up into the attic to survey and think about how I was going to tackle this. I decided to run a wire from the overhead lights, that way all of the lights would work off of the same switch. I got back out of the attic and gathered my tools and headed back up. Our attic is very shallow and it is full of blown-in insulation, so I basically have to slither my way around. Craig ran a drill bit up in the location of the new junction box so I could find it, then he cut out the hole for the junction box. I then had to work my way to the area and secure the junction box to the rafters, this was not easy since I had about 10" of space to work in, this is not a job for people with claustrophobia, I think all of those years long ago when I was a contortionist helped as well. Anyway, I fed my wire through the old light junction box to the new box and my work in the attic was done.

So, I unwired the old light so I could tie the new light into it and I discover 3 separate wires coming into the box, I changed out most of our wiring when we remodeled except this one, all of the wiring in this house is so bizarre, anyway, I hooked it up tried it out and........nothing...........argh!!! Neither light worked, so I start over and draw myself a diagram and think and think and think, what is going on here, I then tried just hooking up the old light the way it was and..........nothing again, so I hook up just the new light and.........Success! So I unwire everything, test the wires, figure out which one is the power line, draw it all out again on a piece of paper, go back and rewire everything and ..........only the new light works. I have no idea why my old light (which isn't really old) isn't working, I am going to give it another go tomorrow after I sleep on it. All in all, success, I love the new lights.