A new home on wordpress

As you can see, I’m trying out wordpress. I’ve been using a lot of other (mostly free) online services lately (gmail, NewsGator, del.icio.us, flickr, etc.), so I decided to give it a try. We’ll see…

My new Makita Lithium-Ion Cordless Drill Rocks!

For Christmas, my wife got me a Makita BHP451 LXT 18 Volt Lithium-Ion Hammer Driver-Drill. Even though I’ve only had it a few days, it’s awesome!

I’ve had my old Makita 9.6 Volt cordless drill for almost 20 years now, and it’s served me well, so I’ve been faithful to it. It still works perfect, but it just doesn’t have the power of newer drills. I had to replace the trigger on it about 10 years ago, but other than that it’s been perfect. So I’ll stay loyal to Makita.

The torque on this thing is amazing. I spent yesterday building a new fence gate, and used it not only for screwing in all the pickets and gate framing, but also for driving in the lag bolts for the gate hinges, latch, and handles. No problem at all driving in 2.5″ hex head lag bolts into pressure treated lumber.

I also used it when installing above-cabinet lighting this week. The drill has two LED lights - one on each side of the drill to illuminate the work area. I didn’t see the advantage of the drill’s built-in LED lights at first, but once I was on a ladder, drilling into the top of the cabinets, the benefit of the light became perfectly clear (sorry, no pun intended).

Obviously, it’s too early to comment on battery life and the tool’s longetivity, but the first few days with it have been wonderful. Hopefully this drill will last me 20 years as well.

Custom Lighting on a budget

During my vacation this week, I did a few lighting upgrades to our house.

In the kitchen, we removed the under-counter fluorescent lights, and replaced them all with Xenon lighting. This made a huge difference.

But the interesting lighting was the over-counter lighting. We wanted to add some over-counter up-lighting, for that nice warm glow, as well as to draw your eye upwards, making the kitchen walls seem higher. I used rope lights, and they look awesome! For one wall, where the cabinets run the entire length of the kitchen, I used a 48′ rope light, which turned out to be a bit long. For the 2nd bank of cabinets, which is about 6′ long, I used a 12′ rope. This allowed me to run the light the entire perimeter of the cabinets, which was perfect.

I used 1/2″ plastic cable clamps and 1″ drywall screws to secure the lights to the top of the cabinets. This prevented them from sticking up and being visible. I was able to snake the power cable down the small space between two adjacent cabinets, and wired it into the same hard-wired junction box as my under-cabinet lights. So now, the one switch turns on the under-cabinet and the over-cabinet lights.

It gives such a great glow to the space, and gives the feel of high-end custom lighting. The whole project only took a few hours.

Cost for the under-cabinet Xenon lights: $110
Cost for the rope lights for the kitchen: $43

We were so happy with what it added to the kitchen, that we decided to also add rope lights above the valances in the family room (I custom made the valances a few years ago). Each valance is 6′ long, so I purchased two 6′ rope lights. The rope lights are made to be joined together to form a continuous strip, which is what I did. That way I only had to deal with one power cord. Same plastic cable clamps and drywall screws to secure the lights to the valances. Ran the cord down the wall, holding it in place with cable staples, and then painted the cord and staples the same color as the wall. The plug is behind the couch, so I used an X10 light module, which allows the lights to be controlled via the X10 controller, which can also be controlled via our Harmony 880 remote. As much grief as my wife gives me for how all my electronics are “rigged” - she loves having the lights controlled via the remote. The lighting adds a great glow to the room, and in no way interferes with the TV (no shadows, glare, etc.)

Cost for the rope lights for the family room: $12
Cost for an extension cord: $3

While we were in a lighting mood, we also replaced the old brass overhead lights in our master walk-in closet with halogen lighting. What a difference.

It’s amazing how lighting can change the feel of a room.