modern living room ceiling lights

modern ceiling lights—we all want them,right? hi there. i'm jeff with home repair tutor.and in this video i'm going to share with you how to install a modern ceiling lightand replace the ugly light fixture that you have above.so let's get to it. i've got a lot of awesome tips for you. before you know it, you're goingto have a new and modern look. so let's get started.always start every single electrical project by turning the power off at the circuit breakeror your fuse box. double check that the power is off by flipping the switch on and checkingthat the light doesn't turn on. carefully remove the old shade. in this case,the shade is just attached to the fixture

with these tabs. so i'm just going to removethe glass shade and—yuck! there's some nasty bugs inside there.one little step that i like to take is two-fold: take the light bulbs out 'cause they're madeout of glass and they will shatter if you break them—yes, i found this out the hardway; the other extra tip is to use blue tape to hold the old fixture to the ceiling whileyou lower it down. i like there to be slack in the tape so that i can lower the lampshadedown about 4-6 inches. the fixture is held to the junction box with2 screws. and in this case, these screws actually have nuts on them. so all you have to do isloosen the nuts or the screws, whichever one you have, to lower the fixture down from thejunction box.

with the 2 nuts removed, i can now lower thelight fixture from the junction box carefully. all right.as you can see, the 3 pieces of blue tape are holding the weight of the light fixturefor me. so now i can just fish out the wiring from the junction box.now you can fish out the old wirings. so i've got neutral wires here. all the white wiresare pigtailed together. so in this case, all the hotwires are wiredtogether, too. this light is on a 3-way switch. so i just wanted to let you know about thatin case you're wondering about this red wire here. there were also black wires that wereshoved up into the junction box. and then finally you have your ground wires that areall pigtailed together.

and i highly recommend taking a picture ofthe wiring so that you know how to wire the new light together.with all the wires exposed, now you can undo the pigtails and remove the light fixturefrom the junction box. i personally like to unwire the hotwires first—soall the black wires go first. then i like to unwire the neutrals next. and then finally,unwire the ground wires last. now i can take the fixture off the ceilingand remove all the blue tape. oops! almost. there's one ground wire connecting the lampto the bracket here. so i just need to take that off or cut it off, whichever.remove the old mounting bracket using a flathead screwdriver or philips head screwdriver, whicheveryou have or whatever screw you have that's

holding this bracket to the junction box.hey, you know what one extra step that i forgot to tell you about? when you lower the lightdown, you can actually stick a voltage detector in between the light and touch the wires andsee if they're alive. so this is just one extra precautionary step to ensure that youdon't get electrocuted. so sure enough—even though i've been handling these wires fora few minutes—they're not live. but i wanted to tell you about using a voltage detector.now it's time to take the mounting bracket for the new light. have the green ground screwfacing you, and take the longer mounting screws and place them into the inside holes—sothis hole here and this hole here—because you're going to use these mounting screwsto mount the light to the bracket. so turn

them maybe like 3 or 4 revolutions. so putthem in, turn them clockwise 3 or 4 times. very good. now you have your mounting bracketready to go and be mounted onto the junction box.now you can add the mounting bracket to the junction box using the shorter screws. justslide the screw through the slot and get it started in the junction box. and you can useyour screwdriver to tighten the screws that mount the mounting bracket to the junctionbox. here's the top of the ceiling fixture. soyou have one bare copper ground wire. and then each light socket has a hotwire and awhite, neutral wire. so there's one light socket there. and then here's the other lightsocket. so again, it has a black hotwire and

a neutral white wire.so the first thing that we're going to do is wrap the bare copper ground wire aroundthis green screw. so i'm going to wrap it around this green screw. and then tie it intothe ground wires that are coming from the junction box. so again, we're just going towrap this copper ground wire around the ground screw right here. and we're going to tightenthat down. and then we're going to pigtail the ground wire that we just wrapped aroundthe green ground screw with the ground wires that are coming from the junction box.so when you're done with the ground wires, you can push them up into the junction box.the next step is to wire the neutrals together. so what i like to do is twist the wires comingfrom the light. so i'm going to twist the

white wires from the light together. and theni'm going to join them to the neutral wires coming out of the junction box.i'm going to put a wire nut over all these wires. okay. so there are all the neutralwires. they're wired together. the next step is to wire all the hotwirestogether. in this case, i'm going to wire the black wires from the light together. andthe hotwire that we're going to be using is the red hotwire. so i'm just going to be justwiring the red hotwire with the black wires from the light 'cause that's what fits theconfiguration of my set up. yours could be different so make sure you follow the directionsthat come with your light. try to wrap the wires from the light to the wires in the junctionbox by about 1-2 revolutions, then twist on

the wire nut again. and then finally, we don'tuse the black wires that are up in the junction box. they're pigtailed to make the electricalconnection. but they don't really touch the wires that are coming from the light fixture.so again, we've got all the ground wires wired together; all the hotwires—from the lightwire to the red wire coming from the junction box—and then all the white wires from thelight connected to the white wires in the junction box; and all the black wires in thejunction box just pigtailed together. push all the wires up into the junction box.now it's time to mount the new modern fixture onto the mounting screws here. push the fixtureup such that the mounting screws come through. and then you can turn the fixture so thatthe screws are in the smaller portion of the

keyhole.now you can use your screwdriver to tighten the modern light fixture up to the junctionbox. now you take the threaded nipple and screwit into the light fixture. there's a locking nut on this nipple, and what you need to dois screw that up to the top like so so that the nipple doesn't come loose.now you take your light bulbs and screw them into the fixture like so. just make sure thatthey're appropriately rated for the new light. in this case, i'm using 60w light bulbs. carefullytake your shade, slide it up over the nipple. usually these lights come with a decorativepiece like this one. and then you just screw on the end piece here like so. not too tight'cause you could break the glass lamp shade.

all right. and there you go. now you can turnthe power back on at the circuit breaker. well there you have it. that's how you installmodern ceiling lights. not too bad, right? tons of different tips that i want you tofollow like: taping the old light fixture to the ceiling; and checking the voltage withthe voltage detector to make sure you don't get electrocuted; and as always, turn offthe circuit breaker or take the fuse out when you're working with electricity.so i hoped you like this video. please let me know in the comments section what yourthoughts are or if you have any thoughts on your own because i don't have all the answers.i'm sure you've got a lot of wonderful ideas that you'd like to add.remember, if you haven't already done so,

you can click the subscribe button—i neverget that out. you can always click the subscribe button over at youtube. and that way, everysingle friday, you'll get my new video. and you can also go to homerepairtutor.comand sign up for the email newsletter because the newsletter comes out on fridays as well.that way you'll never miss any of my tips and tricks.so, until the next video, thanks so much for joining me. i really appreciate it.have a great day, and i'll talk to you soon!

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