I believe we left off the last few weeks of the OneRoomChallenge write ups with me promising that I would make progress on my Dining Room refresh. As each week has creeped along I was getting more and more concerned we weren’t going to get it all finished. Well my friends…the day has finally arrived and I have some progress to share! Cue the happy dance!
If you are just jumping on and wondering what I am talking about you can check out my posts the the last few weeks ( 1, 2and 3)… although if I am being honest just skip weeks 2 and 3 as we didn’t really progress as far as I would have liked.
This past weekend my husband was in town and we had one child staying with Grandma for a sleepover. Saturday was go day and we started out by a 2 hour trip to Lowe’s where we bought every piece of hardware imaginable to convert our light fixture mounting plate into a install plate that can accommodate a sloped ceiling.
Dining Room Sloped Ceiling Fixture Adjustment:
After tinkering with all the pieces, we found that the winning combination was slipping the vertical drop of our light fixture through a ceiling fan sloped ceiling adaptor part. The mounting piece has a fair amount of extra room within it to hide our fixture mounting plate. The swivel ball at the bottom perfectly allowed our 1/2″ rod to slip through. Half way through the day we solved part one of our light problem. If you find yourself in a similar sloped ceiling conundrum you can buy this adaptor here, just be prepared for a little fenagling.
Step 2 – Dining Room Light J Box Relocation
Next on the agenda was for my husband to climb through our attic space and relocate the junction box above our new dining nook area. The original owners took their light fixture with them so we have had no light in this corner for months. Plus, their dining space was centered in a weird spot that really blocked the flow of traffic. My husband put on his Tyvek suit and disappeared into the attic. This was probably my least favorite part of our process since I felt so helpless downstairs while he struggled in a tiny crawl space to create this new box.
I’ll spare you the details, but this was by far the most time consuming and messy part of the job. He had to cut a new hole in the ceiling and run wires from the old junction box to the new one.
Step 3 – Upholster Banquette Back Cushion
While he risked his life climbing through the attic I focused on upholstering the new back cushion for our banquette. I have a tutorial coming on this one. It’s an easy method that involves limited skill and a few tools.
1-Cut Foam to fit plywood 
2- Add batting around foam and staple 
3- Wrap and staple final fabric
Once Andy came down from the attic we worked together to actually hang our new light fixture… which involved all four of our hands (so no picture documentation). Let me tell you – this moment was worth the wait – BAM!
Step 4 – Reveal Dining Room Light Fixture!!!
We have a gorgeous dining room Light!!!!
Everything felt so simple and perfect once the light and banquette back cushion was installed. I’ve spent all week thinking about how much I love the simplicity of the space. Which has me seriously questioning my original art, decorative pillow and window covering plans.
I fight this internal tendency to over decorate. So the next two weeks I am going to push to really edit what goes in here.
Stay tuned for more to come. I hope you are as happy as I am to see progress! Make sure to also check in with others on their oneroomchallenge journey here. There is so much creative action going on!
-Rocky
beautiful fixture and fab choice!! I have a similar one in the office too … glad it worked out!