Adding lamps/spots to existing circuit
Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2010 4:04 pm
After some excellent advice a while back on newly plastered walls, I'm hoping someone here can help with another question.
We're in the process of settling in to our newly built house. This entails (along with many other things!) installing ceiling lamps.
Between our bedroom and en-suite shower room we have a "dressing room" (3.6m x 2m). The right-hand wall dividing the two rooms is 80cm, the left-hand wall 2m (i.e there's an 80cm gap between the two, opposite of which is the door to the en-suite).
Just right of centre in the ceiling is the light point (at this moment just wires) controlled by the switch on the wall to the right of the en-suite.
I'm about to install some built-in wardrobes on either side of the room but we have realised that unless we get a fairly powerful spot light arrangement, the lighting for the wardrobes (especially on the right) will be too low.
Here's the question...I'm wondering whether it will be possible to "branch off" the wires for the ceiling light and run this to two sets of spots above either wardrobe?
The ceiling is concrete and in the attic the cables for the ceiling light and switch are easily accessible.
I can see that it would be relatively simple to use a junction box to branch off from the light cable in the attic, drill through to the wardrobes and connect some spots but wonder if this is safe/will work.
Additionally, it would be nice to be able to control either set of extra lights independently. With the above arrangement, I can see that using the existing wall switch, all three sets of lights would come on (I'd also install a regular ceiling light at the existing point). Would it be possible to put a switch in (on the wardrobe(s)) to prevent this?
Many thanks,
Matteo
We're in the process of settling in to our newly built house. This entails (along with many other things!) installing ceiling lamps.
Between our bedroom and en-suite shower room we have a "dressing room" (3.6m x 2m). The right-hand wall dividing the two rooms is 80cm, the left-hand wall 2m (i.e there's an 80cm gap between the two, opposite of which is the door to the en-suite).
Just right of centre in the ceiling is the light point (at this moment just wires) controlled by the switch on the wall to the right of the en-suite.
I'm about to install some built-in wardrobes on either side of the room but we have realised that unless we get a fairly powerful spot light arrangement, the lighting for the wardrobes (especially on the right) will be too low.
Here's the question...I'm wondering whether it will be possible to "branch off" the wires for the ceiling light and run this to two sets of spots above either wardrobe?
The ceiling is concrete and in the attic the cables for the ceiling light and switch are easily accessible.
I can see that it would be relatively simple to use a junction box to branch off from the light cable in the attic, drill through to the wardrobes and connect some spots but wonder if this is safe/will work.
Additionally, it would be nice to be able to control either set of extra lights independently. With the above arrangement, I can see that using the existing wall switch, all three sets of lights would come on (I'd also install a regular ceiling light at the existing point). Would it be possible to put a switch in (on the wardrobe(s)) to prevent this?
Many thanks,
Matteo