The part most people skip: the layout
Anyone can cut holes in a ceiling. The difference between a living room that feels warm and one that feels like a dentist's waiting room comes down to decisions made before the hole saw comes out — how many, how far apart, how far off the wall, and what colour the light actually is.
We lay the room out first. On the ceiling, with a pencil, while you are standing there. You see the spacing before it is permanent, and if you want the row shifted eight inches to line up with the island, we shift it. That conversation takes ten minutes and it is the single biggest factor in whether you like the result.
What we're actually deciding
- Spacing and offset. Even coverage without the runway look, and far enough off the wall that you light the room rather than the baseboards.
- Colour temperature. Warm (2700–3000K) for living rooms and bedrooms; neutral (3500–4000K) for kitchens, laundry and garages. Getting this wrong is the most common regret, and it is free to get right.
- Beam spread and output. A 9-foot ceiling and a vaulted ceiling do not want the same fixture.
- Zones and switching. Perimeter separate from the island. Dimmers where you actually want mood, not on everything by default.
- Dimmer compatibility. The reason LED pot lights flicker, buzz or refuse to dim smoothly is almost always a dimmer that was never matched to the driver. We match them.
Tunable fixtures are worth asking about. Many current LED pot lights have a small switch on the housing that sets colour temperature at install. If you are torn between warm and neutral, we can put a tunable fixture in and set it after you have lived with it for a week.
Ceilings, insulation and cutting in
New construction and open ceilings are straightforward. Retrofitting a finished ceiling is where craft shows up. We use IC-rated fixtures where they sit against insulation, we work around joists, ducting and plumbing rather than through them, and we keep cuts tight so patching is minimal or unnecessary. Where a hole has to move, we say so before we cut, not after.
Attic access, insulation depth and vapour barrier all get considered on the way in — you should not end up with a warm ceiling and a cold attic trading places through eight new holes.
Beyond pot lights
The same visit is the right time to deal with the rest of it: tired fixtures and yellowed switches, under-cabinet lighting, pendants over the island, closet lights, a proper fixture over the dining table, exterior soffit lighting, or motion-sensor lighting at the side door. Doing them together means one setup, one cleanup, one bill.
Frequently asked
It depends on ceiling height, room size, wall colour and what the room is for — a kitchen you cook in wants more light than a den you watch movies in. Rather than quote a formula, we lay it out on your ceiling and you look at it. That is a far better answer than a number over the phone.
Cutting a ceiling means cutting a ceiling — but done carefully, the fixture trim covers the cut and there is nothing to patch. Where a joist or duct forces a change, we tell you before we cut. We also sheet the floors and vacuum the dust, which is not a given in this trade.
Almost always a dimmer that was not designed for the LED driver in the fixture. It is a fixable problem and usually an inexpensive one. If you already have pot lights doing this, we can swap the dimmers without touching the fixtures.
Adding new circuits or altering existing wiring requires a permit. Straight fixture replacement generally does not. We'll tell you which side of the line your job falls on, and we handle the permit when one is needed.