Installing Undercabinet Lighting
Posted by Wayne
Because we had chosen absolute black granite for our countertops (which are like black mirrors), we were debating whether or not I should try to install under-cabinet lighting because of the reflection. We were worried that you’d look at the countertops and see lights and a bunch of wires running around under the cabinets (which was not the look we were going for). I was also under the impression that I’d have to run a wire or two inside the cabinets, which wasn’t a huge deal but it certainly wouldn’t look that great when you have a cabinet door open.
I never got the official OK on this from my wife, but I was at Home Depot one night and found a set of 3 black halogen “puck” lights that I thought would fit the bill. Because everything was black (lights and cords), I thought you probably wouldn’t be able to see it that much in the reflection of the granite. I think a set was about $25. I bought two sets figuring that I’d install the first one and if it didn’t look good I’d just return the second set.
When I got home I opened up one of the packages and was not particularly happy with what I found. I expected this set to be ready for hardwiring, but it actuality it was designed so that each light had an outlet plug and it also came with a cheap 3 outlet extension cord so you could plug them all in and then plug it into a wall outlet. I can’t imagine how you would use this set as-designed underneath your cabinets and make it look any good. And just where do they expect you to plug the extension cord into? Do they expect you to use duct tape to hold the big bunch of plugs out of site underneath the cabinet? I wanted a permanent set of lights here, not some riffraff!
As is usually the answer when I get angry with inanimate objects, I resorted to brute force. I’d “hardwire” (technically it would still end with an outlet plug) this all together onto one side of the cabinets and see how it turned out before opening up the other package and and starting on the other side.
My first step was to mount the lights under the cabinets. Because there are three upper cabinets on each side, I just had to center these in the middle of the cabinets. The lights themselves were easy to mount with two very short screws that weren’t long enough to go up through the bottom of the cabinet and into the cabinet itself (you don’t want screws poking up where you put your plates and glasses).
Each light had a pretty good amount of electrical cord attached to it so you could cut it down to size where you wanted it. Each light came with an after-the-fact plug that could be affixed to the end of the cord after you had cut it down to size. Before I did anything else, I attached the plugs to the end of each cord, plugged them in to the provided 3 outlet extension cord, and plugged it into the wall. I wanted to see how the lights looked with the cabinets and granite countertops before I went any further. They actually looked pretty darned good (except for the cords hanging everywhere).
I unplugged the extension cord, removed the plugs from the ends of the cords, and began thinking about the best way to connect everything together (both sides of the cabinets) onto one switch with one plug.
The biggest issue was that at somewhere along the line I was going to have a bunch of wires joined together, and it was going to have to be under the cabinets where you could potentially see it (the reflection). All of this work was being done in an area about 1.5 inches tall under the cabinets. I had an old standard depth outlet box laying around and figured that if I could cut that down to slightly less than 1.25 inches tall it would be a perfect place to join all the wires and keep everything looking nice and neat under the cabinets. I had some 1.25 inch long wood screws that would be the perfect length to hold the junction box to the underside of the cabinets without breaking through into the inside of the cabinet.
I ran all three cords from the lights to the location where I would be mounting the junction box and cut them off, leaving a little bit of slack, and stripped the ends of all the wires. I cut the outlet off of the provided extension cord and stipped the ends of the two wires. As a test before I started running wires through the walls, I joined all of the positive wires together and all the negative wires together and put wire nuts on both. I plugged the extension cord in and all three lights worked perfectly.
At this point I had to figure out how I’d be running a cord behind the wall over to the other set of cabinets. I opened up the second set of lights and cut both ends off of the provided extension cord (I wouldn’t need either end, but I did need the wire). Underneath the cabinet I drilled a hole through the back lip of the cabinet and into the wall to run the wiring. I fed a few feet of the extension cord into the wall and fished it out through a nearby hole behind where the microwave would be located. Evidently previous owners of the house had moved an electrical outlet up into the cabinet above, and left an electrical outlet sized hole. This worked out perfectly for me to fish wires out of the wall with a hanger that I bent into a hook at the end.
As a side note, if any readers are considering copying what I did here and you have a similar arrangement where the space you’re trying to gap is behind the microwave space, you shouldn’t hesitate to knock a similar sized hole in the drywall to fish these wires. It’s really the only option besides running the wires through the cabinet, and it will be hidden once the microwave is in place. I probably wouldn’t have even thought about knocking a hole there unless someone told me to, but I was lucky enough to have had a previous owner make the decision for me and it worked out very well.
I still needed to get a length of cord run down from the outlet in the cabinet above the microwave location. I drilled a hole in the back of the top cabinet close to the electrical outlet. Because I couldn’t fish anything up through this small hole, the wire would have to go down, be fished out through the big hole, secured to the wire I already pulled up from the bottom hole, and then both wires would be pulled back through the bottom hole. Then I’d have to feed the original wire back through the small hole and fish it back up to the big hole. Sound complicated? It wasn’t (just complicated to explain without pictures). See below for pictures.
Once I had the wires pulled through the holes I connected all of the wires within the junction box but did not secure the junction box to the cabinet until later. I also installed a switch on the power cord and mounted it under the cabinet with a small screw. Once I had tested it, that side of the cabinets was completed except for some hanging wires.
The other side of the cabinets was about the same arrangement except that there was space to hide the connected wires behind the corner cabinet so it didn’t require a junction box. I joined the three sets of wires into one, put on wire nuts, electrical tape, and that bunch of connected wires is hidden from sight up behind the cabinet. This time I only had one wire to deal with feeding up to the big hole in the wall. I knocked out some more drywall horizontally to get past the next stud (16″ over) and then I could stick my hanger down in there to fish. I drilled another hole in the bottom lip of that cabinet and fed the single wire into it and fished it out. Once I had it out I connected the two remaining wires, turned on the switch, and it all worked!
The only remaining task was to get all the hanging wires nice and tight up against the inside rim of the cabinets. The lighting kits came with some small talons for this purpose which you need to nail into the cabinet. After a couple of these I realized that this was a terrible idea. The vibrations of the light hammer strikes broke one of the halogen bulbs which I had to later replace. Instead I turned to my staple gun which I carefully centered over the wires before pulling the trigger. This worked very well and I was easily able to hide all of the loose wiring.
After
The end result of the under cabinet lighting is simply amazing. Once the microwave was installed and I tiled the backsplash I just knew it was going to be a huge improvement. Now that I’ve seen it I can’t imagine living without this extra light. I was happy that I was able to hide all of the wiring in the wall and it all worked out great the way I ended up doing it. I would say that this is a must have if you’re updating your kitchen.
And about the mirror-like black granite: You can definitely see a light source of some sort when you’re standing over the countertop, but it really doesn’t appear to be coming from any place in particular. You can’t see any electrical cords unless you’re really looking for them. I had even planned on painting the blue junction box to match the bottom of the cabinet more closely and I’m not going to even bother, you can’t see it. It looks great, that’s really all I can say.
Total Cost: $50, Total Time: 4 hours
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