Pot lights not centered

10 years ago

I cross posted this in the March building thread. And would like your opinions on what we should do.

Today our house was supposed to be finished, but our possession is not till the 24th of next month. Which is a very good thing as there are so many things left to do and the mistakes continue. Shakes head, it's getting to the point of being ridiculous.

This weeks first issue is the pot lights in kitchen are not centered above the island and in front of the stove. When the kitchen had to be reworked due to a mess up we lost 12sq ft of kitchen space and cabinets had to be moved over. The electricians were supposed to move the lights for new kitchen configuration and didn't. Our non-existent site sup never bothered to make sure they were moved before drywall. We never noticed as we've been so busy with all the other mistakes and it was not noticeable until the island and cabinets were in place.

When I called the owner of our building company he said it was our fault for not mentioning it before drywall, we were told it had been moved and I told the builder it was not our job to constantly find or prevent their mistakes or make sure things are done right, it was his. Now we are at the position to fix this, the ceilings would have to be scraped, lights moved and ceiling retextured at this late stage and worry the ceilings won't look worse. Or leave the lights alone off centered. Grrrrr

We've had our ceilings scraped and redone before in other builds and the outcome has not been good. You could see the drywall seams, uneven stipple.... I'm really scared to take that chance again. Are the lights off centre enough to risk a bad scraping and retexture job? I'm so scared it might be worse? What would you do? Thank you so very much for any help or comments.

Just want to add: We were supposed to have an electrical walk through before drywall went up. The builder never arranged it and we have had a couple of issue because of it.

Not so bad at this angle. ;)

This post was edited by xc60 on Wed, Mar 26, 14 at 0:05

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Comments (4)

hough2012
10 years ago
I would want it fixed. We centered two lights above the island in our recent build. It wasn't until granite was installed that I noticed the lights were off. The cabinets were centered under the lights. Unfortunately, we have 12" overhang which put the lights about 6" off center. Our solution was much easier - move the island. But it doesn't look like you have the room to do that. If it hadn't been fixed I would be angry every time I walked in my kitchen. Good luck!
worthy
10 years ago
The offset may not affect the lighting of the island.

But it will engender comments from all those visitors who feel duty-bound to find something wrong with your new home!

I recently had four-foot long patches in a textured ceiling redone after damage from leaking plumbing. The painter wanted to use his newly acquired sprayer; and still, unless you were specifically looking for repairs, you wouldn't know they were done. And that's without even re-painting the entire ceiling.
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xc60
Original Author
10 years ago
Thank you both very much for your input.

Hough, was your granite on when you had the island moved? I thought of moving the island as well, we have about 52" inches of space between island and the counter, so we should have room. That's the other thing that bothers me, if we had any kind of site supervision to notice this even at cabinet install it would of been easy to move the island over. The hardwood flooring is also installed at this point but I don't believe the plumbing for sink is done yet. Should I push for this fix instead?

Worthy, I'm happy your ceiling looking good after patching, and hope you have no more plumbing issues. :) That's the other thing, I know people have their ceilings patched and redone all the time, and they turn out good. I've never had that luck, lol

We haven't been to the house at night to see how the lights really effect the lighting yet, but could tell when we turned them on at dusk that they shine over the sink and not so much at the seating area at all.

As from the comments from guests, that was one of the first things I thought of, lol. My hubby has an old army buddy who's such a joy. He always loves to make rude comments about everyone's homes or cars. On our last house some of the rememberable comments were:

"I don't like your granite, looks like a Dalmation." It was Alaska White.

"So are these real hardwood, oh they are? So they'll be scratched to sh@& in no time". They weren't.

"I liked your old backsplash better". When we replaced it after a really bad tile job.

So I can only imagine his comments on the lights, lol. When we bought new vehicles he would comment on how he didn't like them and insult them as he drove a falling apart old minivan loaded with mounds of garbage abd junk and would tell us when he bought a vehicle he would buy a fancy Corvette. He said this for about 15 years and never did buy one. Finally about two years ago he did, and stored it in our garage in our house he didn't like. Don't know what hubby sees in this "friend" but unfortunately he will be around, lol.
hough2012
10 years ago
When I first noticed the problem, I asked my husband if it was possible to move island. He got this 'are you crazy?' look on his face. He thought it would be too heavy because the granite was installed. I brought it up to our site manager and he said it wouldn't be a problem. That afternoon it was centered under the lights. Island is 4x6 and it took 3 guys to move it.

If the plumbing won't be an issue and you'll still be happy with aisle width, moving it would be the easiest fix.

This post was edited by Hough2012 on Wed, Mar 26, 14 at 16:34