I like to save dessert diy projects to have after annoying projects.  The crown molding was semi-dessert after skim coating the ceiling.  Putting in these pendant lights was double dessert.  Maggie having jobs at furniture stores has helped us out quite a bit now and again.  We got a really good deal on these Tom Dixon inspired pendants months ago and have been waiting to put them up. 

We looked for a while for a canopy for pendant lights and found a couple options, all of which were a few hundred dollars, and not particularly nice.  Eventually we decided that it would be better to use the piece of walnut we had left over from the third floor and make our own.  It was going pretty well, then I took off the old light fixture and found this gas pipe.

Our house was built in the 1880’s and was originally outfitted with gas lamps, which is pretty cool.   All the gas lines are still in the walls and poke out of where I want to put lights, which is pretty uncool.  Finding out that they’re all filled with gas was totally uncool.

Once that was safely capped again, we were off.  I marked off where the lights should go in the board and drilled them out with forsner bits.  The plan was to find a few studs in the ceiling, install heavy duty eyelet bolts, then install more bolts into the board and connect them with s connectors.  This would allow you to attach half the board to the ceiling and hang it there, making wiring and installation easier.

We ended up not using the eyelet bolts on the board and not using the S connectors, the whole thing hung too low with that setup. instead we attached aircraft cables to the board, clinched them with some aluminum ferrules and put them through the eyelets on the ceiling.  It’s very sturdy.

Some tips: Put up one light and set the distance that they should hang.  Put the board on ladders at that distance, now you can place all your lights easily and get the heights adjusted correctly.  Wire the lights in parallel and staple excess cord to the underside of the board.  Follow normal safety guidelines when working with electrical systems.  Use an off-on-off test to make sure you’re turning off the correct fuse. Flip. Is it off? yes. Flip.  Is it on now? yes. Flip. Is it off again? yes.  It’s also a good idea to get an electrical sensing screwdriver thing.  Use the correct size wire nuts, it tells you on the package what their capacity is.

We’re very pleased with how it turned out.  It’s an easy weekend project for anyone that wants to hang pendants.  Don’t buy something, canopies are a ripoff.