Cedar Key - Day # 18 - Accents

Wow......18 days already?  It seems much, much longer than that to me.  Monday  broke clear, a little cooler, and a little less humid.  After getting the ball rolling Sunday by finally fixing the loud shower fan I was in a good place mentally to tackle another long delayed repair.  Each of our overhead cabinets has a small light that comes on when the door is opened providing sufficient light, even during the day, to see what is in the cabinet.  All the lights have worked since we bought our coach, except the one in the cabinet over my left shoulder as I drive.  I like things to work, but had let this slide for a long time.  I didn't want to spend $10+ to fix it by replacing the old light, so I decided to use a small strip of LED lights in its place.  There were only 3 lights on this left over strip from another project, but I believed they would be enough to equal the light output of the defunct light.  As it turned out, they were actually a little brighter than the old one.

It is amazing how such a small thing can bring such pleasure to me.  I am glad I waited to fix it because I like my solution better than buying something off the shelf.  When the others start to burn out, and I'm sure at some point they will, I now have an easy fix......took me less than 15 minutes start to finish.

Once I had crossed one more thing off the fixit list, which is not really that long now, I decided tackle a new project I had only just conceived a few days before.  I had spent the last few days figuring out how to do it.   I have wanted to add some accent lighting in the salon area (living room, if you will) that was more indirect than what had been installed.  My friend Chris (Tales from Technomadia) had just installed some LED strip lighting in his kitchen, and living area and was using a 12 volt dimmer switch to control them.  He got the dimmers from Amazon for $8 each, and was ordering some more, so I asked him to include 4 for me....I've got a few more projects for lighting in mind.

Once the dimmers came in Saturday's UPS delivery I was ready to start the project, and Monday was as good a day as any.  Once I gathered all my tools, my supplies together, and with TLE's advice and assistance it was less than two hours until the new lighting was installed, and here is the finished product!

I installed strip lighting between the curtain valance and the curtains by attaching it to a wood strip to which the valance is attached.

Here is the dimmer switch, installed upside down to hide the wires.

Here are the lights with the dimmer at 100%, and below with it at around 50%.

I had an idea this lighting would look good, but the effect, and how this inexpensive lighting changed the feel of the living room area is immeasurable.   Basically I used around 28 feet of LED strip lighting, about 2 feet of 18 gauge stranded wire, a little solder, a few connectors, and one dimmer.  Total cost less than $20.

The Tiki Bar at Low Key Hideaway has been closed for a little over a week as the owners had gone on a cruise.....well they are back, and the Tiki Bar 'OPEN' sign was back on the street, so TLE and I headed over around 5:15 to grab a couple of brews, and watch the sun set.  As it turned out, many of our friends had the same idea.  We stood there talking, while snapping pictures of yet another great sunset!  There is such a feeling of serenity, and quiet as the sun dips below the horizon one more time, closing out another great day in Cedar Key.

These soft flowing colors just blow me away.......thanks for stopping by!