joeycuda
Well-known member
Gameroom/finished basement - Lighting experts needed!
My house has a large finished room in the basement, which is the gameroom. Well, it looks more like a storage unit now, but it has potential. There's carpet squares, but the walls are a flat gray, which looks more like primer, and the lighting is insufficient. I think that when the house was built, the lighting was 'just enough'.
There are 3 light switches/circuits:
1) Ceiling fan
2) Ceiling fan light fixture
3) Two 4 foot fluorescent fixtures
I want to add more lighting for the gameroom, but also done tastefully for if we even need to sell/move. I'm unsure if recessed lighting will one day look dated, but it seems to be very common and still in use, but probably more LED now?
Looking at the crappy illustrations below, the joists run top to bottom (across the room). This means that I can easily put a hole in the ceiling and wire a new fixture one side to the middle of the room and other side of the room back to the middle/current fixture.
So, currently there are two 4 foot fixtures and the single bulb fixture on the ceiling fan. The black stars are proposed added light locations.
The most obvious, to me, way to go is
-Remove the 4 foot fluorescent fixtures
-Add can 5 feet from center on each side of where 4 foot was
-Put can where 4 foot was
-Upgrade light fixture on ceiling fan to 3 or 4 med base bulb fixture
I'll have some cans 5' and some 7.5' from the walls. They'll be 5' and 8' apart. Not ideal if you were starting from scratch with no sheetrock, but as far as running wire down those joists, does this sound reasonable and like it will be enough lighting, gameroom or not?
My house has a large finished room in the basement, which is the gameroom. Well, it looks more like a storage unit now, but it has potential. There's carpet squares, but the walls are a flat gray, which looks more like primer, and the lighting is insufficient. I think that when the house was built, the lighting was 'just enough'.
There are 3 light switches/circuits:
1) Ceiling fan
2) Ceiling fan light fixture
3) Two 4 foot fluorescent fixtures
I want to add more lighting for the gameroom, but also done tastefully for if we even need to sell/move. I'm unsure if recessed lighting will one day look dated, but it seems to be very common and still in use, but probably more LED now?
Looking at the crappy illustrations below, the joists run top to bottom (across the room). This means that I can easily put a hole in the ceiling and wire a new fixture one side to the middle of the room and other side of the room back to the middle/current fixture.
So, currently there are two 4 foot fixtures and the single bulb fixture on the ceiling fan. The black stars are proposed added light locations.
The most obvious, to me, way to go is
-Remove the 4 foot fluorescent fixtures
-Add can 5 feet from center on each side of where 4 foot was
-Put can where 4 foot was
-Upgrade light fixture on ceiling fan to 3 or 4 med base bulb fixture
I'll have some cans 5' and some 7.5' from the walls. They'll be 5' and 8' apart. Not ideal if you were starting from scratch with no sheetrock, but as far as running wire down those joists, does this sound reasonable and like it will be enough lighting, gameroom or not?




