NMS Lights up the Garage! Very Illuminating!

Lead Project Manager for Operation LIGHT 'EM UP, Brian Nixon!
Back left of this photo is one of the old fluorescent lights. 

This weekend's garage time had the crew installing new lighting in the NMS-North garage. When we bought the house a year ago, the two-car garage had a grand total of two fluorescent light fixtures, with only one of them really over where the cars park. OK, the new garage door opener has a new light in it, and I can always open the two window blinds for more sunlight during the day, but the garage, I mean, the NMS-NORTH WORLD HEADQUARTERS OF RACING was still kind of dark. 

No lights in this picture, just wanted to show off the NMS Red Team Porsche Cayman and BMW 135is.

We managed to easily install 8 LED lights in a pattern around the garage, so things are looking much brighter now! One of the old fluorescent lights is still way over in the corner by the water heater, where cars don't go. In addition to more light, we turned the previous light fixture wiring into a normal twin outlet that powers the two chains of LED lights. 

OK, the lights! Like most things we do, this is not a step-by-step guide, and besides, I forgot to take any "before" pictures!

These lights are not expensive, easy to install (if you have a ladder or are 8 feet tall yourself) and convenient because they work off the same wall switch that the old lights did. Oh, and did I mention it's a lot brighter? It is!

Ladder. You are going to want to have a ladder for this job. My other thought was to get a pair of stilts like the dry-wall hanging guys use but take my advice and stick with the ladder! Oh yeah, the Honda Accord Hybrid has joined the conversation. 

These lights come with all the hardware you might need, which includes two methods of hanging them! We used the simple little eyebolts that you could hand screw into the ceiling, attached a chain, and hung the lightweight lights. Each fixture has its own electric cord and switch, so it's easy to chain up to six of them together. 

We considered putting ALL the lights up here at the camera end of the garage, thinking that's where you usually work on an engine, but, well, there ARE some things you work on at the tailgate end of a car. OH, and one of the cars here is a mid-engine, so we spread the lights all around. 

Once we converted the old light wiring into an outlet, we ran one chain of six lights in one direction, and a second chain of two lights going the other way to encircle the space. No muss, no fuss, and as baseball hall of famer Johnny Bench used to say about Rust-Oleum, "no runs, do drips, no errors." We even managed to complete this job with only ONE trip to Home Depot!