My wife and I are wanting to do some renovating in the bathroom. We're having the tile and tub reglazed and putting in a new tile floor. That much we've got figured out...
But the one thing we want to do but don't really feel confident in doing ourselves and not sure where to turn for a reasonable price is moving the lights and pulling the medicine cabinet out.
The walls are plaster and the lights are currently in a vanity style on either side of the medicine cabinet, we'd like to make it one fixture and move it to the ceiling...and we'd like to get remove the medicine cabinet and cover up that part of the wall with just a bigger basic mirror.
I'm concerned on how to do all of this without damaging the plaster walls/ceiling. Any advice on who I should be contacting?
I'm in South St. Louis if anyone has any specific companies in mind.
It seems to me like you ought to just be able to tear out the plaster around the lights and the medicine cabinets until you reach a stud on both sides. I'd probably just go to half way on the thickness of the stud (3/4") so the remaining plaster is not loose. I guess the only problem here is the differences in thickness. I'm not sure if just taking out the plaster, leaving the wood slats and putting drywall over that would work, or if you'd need to take the slats out. But they do have 1/2" and 5/8" drywall. The 5/8" is usually only used for firewalls because it takes longer to burn through, but whatever.
On the electrical, I'd probably cut the wires near where they turn down to run down the studs and add a covered junction box to then run to the ceiling. In the ceiling, just buy you one of the boxes that is for old work, rather than new construction--this just means it attaches differently. For code purposes, you are supposed to have a wire staple on your romex within 12" of the box and then something like every 2 or 3 feet I think to keep it in the center of your stud. (not as technically worded, but you get the gist).
For who to call, can't help you. But I've found a lot of good people just by asking people I work with or family members. For an electrician, this wouldn't be that big of a job and I think the average rate is around $75 an hour labor, unless they just quote you a price for everything.
Also, when I built my house, we found bathroom mirrors at Hobby Lobby. They aren't technically bath mirrors, but they look nice and they were something like 40% off and way cheaper than anything you'd buy at a big box store. I'd also recommend looking online for your new fixture. Places like
www.lighting.com com and so forth you can find really good prices on things. If you are just looking for a pot light, you can buy the insulation rated cans pretty cheap at Home Depot and instead of using traditional bulbs, I would totally recommend an LED. I think the light they put off is excellent and although pricey, they don't get nearly as hot and you'll probably never have to replace it. You can buy LED specific housings, but the traditional ones with an LED bulb in the same base is cheaper as the traditional can is cheaper.
