Talk about your anti-climaxes. Put in one last pretty intense day of work on Sunday and managed to "complete" (more later) the skylight project . . . after dark. So that’s what I saw when I came out of the attic, feeling all excited about finishing: a dark hole in the ceiling. I don’t even have the electrical light kit, so there’s no way to light it up at night right now… (I want to see what the kitchen looks like with the second recessed light before I decide if we need the light kit)

So, yeah, not as cool as I’d hoped – at least at night. This morning, however, it was giving strong hints of its future coolness, but the weather’s been crazy overcast all day and while it’s doing an impressive job with the light that’s outside there’s just not enough there to make a huge difference inside. And of course it’s practically dark when I get home from work, so the bottom line is we’ll have to wait to see how bright it gets. All signs point to awesome.

Speaking of awesome, I was also able to finish and close up all the wiring yesterday. I had to cut the existing 3/4" metal conduit with my dremel to make room for the skylight tube, so I routed it into a new junction box instead of using the kitchen light fixture like it used to. Also added a grounding wire to that box – although as I said before none of the existing kitchen / half-story wiring even has a ground. But by adding it to the junction box I can use it if/when I add the light kit to the skylight, which will make me happier since it’s theoretically nearer to the elements. The rest of the wiring was the first part of the project that went exactly how I’d planned, which was nice for a change. Since that picture of the switch I’ve sanded, re-patched, re-sanded, and closed up the box.

So what’s left? Well, in the first picture you can see the first round of plaster patching, darker since it’s still wet. You can also see a ring of dirt in a circle around where the old fixture used to be – really not sure of the physics of that, but somehow there’s a noticeable deposit there… Since that picture I’ve added another layer of plaster to match the level of the ceiling, it will need one more round of work to match the texture. I also want to clean / repaint the dirt ring. And I noticed there was a little light bleed around the ring of the skylight since I wasn’t able to make a perfect circle in the existing plaster, but I’m not sure how to address that yet… There seems to be some air leakage in the outer rim, too – something like Great Stuff might fix both issues, but it can’t be so permanently bonding, in case anything ever needs to move.

Oh, and paint. I finally hit a section of the wall with that "Pottery Red" we thought we liked way back when, we’ll see what that looks like when it’s dry in the morning. Whew. Getting there, and for now a break until the next light arrives…

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