Recessed Lighting For Crown Molding In Tray Ceiling?

Mike Finley

Small tray ceiling in kitchen 4 cans in the interior of the tray ceiling, the inside perimeter of the tray will have crown molding at the edges, customer wants to light it for a glow up to the inside of the tray, with the cans being turned off on separate switch so the crown lighting can act as mood or night light.

My first thought was install a switched outlet up there and plug in a rope light. Is this typical? Also, how do you deal with the length of the rope light. Ideally it should be as long as the run of molding so it isn't doubled back upon itself right? Is there some sort of trimable rope light?

Comms101

That's what I would do. And yes the rope lights I have worked with were trimmable. There is a cut mark every 12 or 18 inches (can't remember).

Mike Finley

Don't leave me hanging - where do you get the trimable type?

PipeGuy

Google dude - rope lights

more rope light

But seriously...rope lights in the kitchen ceiling? Is this one of your 'let's see who bites' posts?

Mike Finley

LOL, no this is serious. There is no way I can see installing flourescents, the lighting would be uneaven in the corners and they would take up too much room. Halogens would be even worse. I'm open to alternatives, what are the alternatives?

PS - I can google too man, but I want it local if available.

mdshunk

Sorry, but the UL outlawed trimmable rope lighting a few years back, and the manufacturer's were permitted to sell the current trimmable stock off. At last report, field cuttable rope lighting was expected to be sold out by the second quarter of this year. Probably the best known vendor for such oddball products is National Specialty Lighting. They have all sorts of special architectural lighting products. You can connect various lengths of their rope light seemlessly end to end for custom length, or have your perfect length made up by them. They also have a product called "Brite Strip", which is specially made for crown molding applications such as yours, and is field cuttable. Woo-hoo! Check it out.

(By the way, I don't work for them. I'm just a regular electrician who comes home dirty every night just like you guys.)

Teetorbilt

LED's are rapidly becoming popular, very low heat output too. I'm beginning to see them all over boats now, might be worth a Google.

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hatchet

Look at lucifer lighting - their strip lights with xenon bulbs (not as much heat) and the light shields make for very nice effects. If you go 4" o.c. with them it's about 15w per foot. It's 24v system so you'll need a place for a transformer (the downside).

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747

what about those hockey puck lights i don't know there exact name but thats what they look like hockey pucks and give a nice warm light. You can install as many as you need and they run off of a transformer box. or maybe not because those are usually mounted underneath a cabinet where they can't be seen to light counter top. Do you know a lighting designer you could run this project by???

mdshunk

There would be no way that puck lights would fit behind crown molding. Think about it.
They are generally reserved for undercabinet and undershelf lighting applications.
I'm sure that a lighting designer would like to collect a couple of sheckels to spec this out, but it's a fairly mundane lighting element that should not require a designer. The lighting vendor or the electrician will have more than enough skill to do the minimal "design" of this.

Teetorbilt

This is not rocket science. Let's just throw around what we know.
BTW, I'm not really sure about the topic. Cove moulding is closed, once the top is opened for lights it is referred to here by ASID's as valance lighting.
Look for new thread.

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mdshunk

...and the lighting Mr. Finley proposes is called "cove lighting" or "valance lighting", interchangeably. Means the same thing. I'm not so sure that most tradespeople would know the interior designer's club lingo. Does the ASID have a secret handshake also?


Cove lighting

747

Teetor is correct valance lighting I didn't realize that was what he was talking about. Those puck lights was a stupid suggestion :Thumbs: LOL

747

A LED ROPE LIGHT :Thumbs: One might not be enough but how about two running parallel. Is it possible you might be able to run a mirror underneath of them meaning a special cut piece of mirror from a glass company just wide enough to fit. In theory the reflection should be equal to 4 led rope lights and the beam will project upward. This should be sufficent illumination. :Thumbs:

shimmerl

we are new here but you guys know lots of things

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Mike Finley

This is the idea, but on a much smaller scale - 4'x6' is all this will be, centered over a kitchen island.



From talking to you here and doing some research the right way to do this is with a 24 volt transformer and a xenon lighting rope.


However, this is a KISS solution for this one and it will be a LED rope light (60,000 hour life $90) plugged into an outlet. As was said you can't cut them in the field anymore, so I will just order it to length, stick it in the crown and plug it into a switched outlet.



The customers expectations and budget for this part of the job are not high so we will see how it looks, from everything I have seen it should meet their expectations.

wberry

Have you or anyone you know had any safety issues using rope lighting for accent lighting? I recently had one short out and experienced some melting with one of our installations where we used it in a ceiling tray. I am a little concerned and am not sure if I am going to use it in further installations.

Greg Di

Mike,

How tall is your crown profile? I would think you'd need a pretty large crown to hide a receptacle from all angles.

The reason I ask is that this is something I would like to offer as an upgrade, but I don't want my electrician to have to think to much. I want to tell him how it's going to be before we start.

copusbuilder

Never heard of a problem with burning but anything is possible? I use thm for under rail lighting on my deck. I also use them above my kitchen cabinets secured behind the crown mold. Gives off a real nice light and is excellent for mood lights!!

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Mike Finley

Hey, Greg,

just a simple 4 1/2 mdf crown molding. Just have him turn the box sideways and tuck it into a corner and bring it down as far as possible.