Week six of the One Room Challenge involved changing out the last original 1963 light in our house. We really wanted to install a sky light here, but had some issues with framing, so that project will happen later down the road. Before we installed the recessed light the area above the stairs was so dark. The lights from the hallway cast a shadow on the artwork, which didn’t allow you to see all the details from the joint compound.

We ran into a minor issue before installing it, so I wanted to share a few tips/hack in case you’re ever in a predicament with existing recessed lighting.

As you can see from the photo at the beginning of this post, this was an existing hole. The issue was that the drill bit had nothing to “grip to” so we had to hack this DIY. What you’ll want to do is grab a piece of scrap drywall and two screws. Go into the attic and screw the scrap drywall over the existing hole, making it appear that there was no existing hole. See photo below.

Now that your scrap drywall is in place, your drill bit will have something to hold on to when creating your larger recessed light hole.

Here’s how to artwork looks now that the new light is installed! Before it was dark and had a shadow cast on it from the beam. Now you can see all the details of the artwork perfectly.

We need to wrap up some painting, trim, and the stairs and this One Room Challenge is COMPLETE! Make sure you guys check out the other participants on the ORC blog!

Are you guys following along on Instagram? We’ve been sharing all of the behind the scenes over there, as well as on the blog! We’d love for you to jump over and follow us! In case you missed it, we’re giving away a Tiki Brand firepit bundle when we hit 10K!

Stay tuned for the big reveal of our hallway transformation! Thanks for stopping by!