To Light or Not To Light

That is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous lighting prices and installation work, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? To give up and not install lighting.

I’m not sure if that works, but you get the idea: Do I install lighting in the dinning room cabinets I’m building. There are 3 main issues.

First, what to light. Do I only light the exposed counter top area. Essentially under-cabinet lighting like in the kitchen, or do I also add lighting in the upper, glass front cabinets.

Second, how do I light it. I think the low-voltage puck lights you see in home improvement stores are out of the question. I don’t like the idea of a plug-in transformer. It must be hard-wired, and I haven’t seen that locally. The last time I tried to buy hard-wired under cabinet lighting it turned in a months long odyssey. At least I know where to get them now.

Third, how do I turn them off and on. I don’t want to add another switch on the wall because the room has wood paneling all the way around. This means there is a lot of extra framing in the walls. To get a new switch on the wall would mean dismantling some of the paneling. That is not something I want to do.

I thought about putting a switch on the paneled wall of the middle section of the cabinets, but as you can see in the picture below, it doesn’t quite work



I would need to cut the trim around the face-plate. I think it would look like an afterthought. I then remembered that I found an old switch out in one of the garages vacated by my tenant a few months back.



All of the knob and tube has been disconnected in these garages. The switch seems to be in very good condition. I will need to take it off and test it before I commit to using it with the cabinets. It has great potential, though.



And here is a first look at the face-frames with the curly redwood I milled. I hope to get them sanded and oiled today. They should look pretty spectacular when done.