How to Hang a Chandelier without Ceiling Light Wiring

This simple tutorial shows how to add a ceiling light without the expense or hassle of altering existing wiring inside your walls and ceilings.

It’s a perfect solution for renters in old homes- and it’s a great way to add a fun light fixture in a room with harsh lighting (i.e. like many professional offices where fluorescent lighting is the only overhead light source). Keep reading to learn how you can hang a functional ceiling light in this beginner-friendly tutorial.

Ceiling Lights in Rooms with No Overhead Electrical Box

In older homes, builders usually didn’t install wiring for an overhead light in common spaces like living rooms. It was fashionable at the time to have lamps warmly lighting a living room. In today’s multi-purpose living room, most people prefer a mix of lighting options. We use lamps for setting a mood and overhead lights to fully illuminate the room on demand.

Hawk Hill’s living room is of the former persuasion. My living room did not have existing wiring for ceiling lights. Instead, I had to walk around and turn on and off multiple lamps. What I really wanted was one switch near the door. While smart plugins offered an alternative, I find it frustrating to have to fumble for my phone just to turn on the lights when I enter a room!

The obvious solution was to call an electrician, but I wasn’t ready to deal with the cost of having an electrician run new wires through Hawk Hill’s 100-year-old plaster and lathe walls.

It took a bit of research and creativity, but I figured out how to have my cake and eat it too. I hung a ceiling light in this room without existing wiring by using the quick DIY method described below.

Combined with a smart switch, I now have the best of both worlds: a mechanical switch on the wall and an app-controlled overhead light! – All without needing to call in an expert.

Now, when the wall switch is flipped in Hawk Hill’s living room, a chandelier and lamp both switch on and brightly illuminate the room. Thrilled with the results for a few months now, I thought I’d take a few minutes to share the instructions for installing a wireless switch for illuminating your own lair of darkness.

 

How to Hang a Chandelier in a Room without Ceiling Light Wiring:

Step 1: Choose a Ceiling Light Fixture:

I picked a chandelier (of course!) but any light fixture designed to hang should work (i.e. a modified pendant or drum shade style fixture should work).

Step 2. Convert wiring connection

I already have a popular blog post on how to convert a light fixture to a plug-in style lamp, but for optimal safety, you’ll want to convert this light fixture a bit differently from that method.

Since you’ll need a long cord to reach from ceiling to outlet, you’ll actually need to splice the wires of the light fixture to the male end of a heavy-duty extension cord. An electrician can help you with this project, or you can consult an expert guide (which I am not!) on how to splice electrical wires and cords.

As you can see in the photo above, heat shrink tubes make it easy to splice wiring for a smooth, safe, single cord.

Step 3. Install a Sturdy ceiling hook

You’ll need to install a hook on your ceiling for your new light. Because light fixtures can be heavy and especially dangerous if they fall, it’s very very important that you use a good quality hook and anchor it to a ceiling joist or beam. I like the easy install heavy duty ceiling hook I linked above.

Ceiling joists are basically just like wall studs, but in the ceiling. You can find and mount things to a joist just like you would for a wall stud. Any stud finder can help you locate a joist to install a hook for your light.

If you can’t find a stud or there isn’t a stud where you want your light, ceiling hooks with “toggle wings” should be able to hold any light fixture under 20 lbs if installed properly on plaster and lathe or drywall.

Step 4. Hide or Disguise the Cord

Once you have your light rewired and ceiling hook installed, installation can be as simple as just hanging the light fixture, however, I prefer to put some thought into how to mask or cover the cord. With your light hanging from the ceiling, the cord will be very visible. For this project, I chose a Velcro-On Chandelier Cord Cover to make my extension cord a bit less of an eyesore.

Option #2 for hiding the cord: use one of the amazing extension cords disguised as manila rope available from Haddock Industrial.

Conceal Remaining Cord

Next, you’ll want to put some thought into how your cord will be disguised as it runs down your wall and to an outlet. Can you conceal it behind window molding? Tuck it around a picture frame? The exposed section of my cord is painted Wythe Blue to match the walls.

🎨💡🔌 You may wish to paint your extension cord to help it blend in. To easily paint a cord, just place a plastic sandwich bag over your hand, place an old sock over the plastic bag, and then place a few tablespoons of paint in your gloved palm. You can paint an extension cord in moments by pulling the cord through your paint-filled mitt.

Step 5. Adding & Setting up a Wireless Switch

By step five, you’ll have a ceiling-mounted light in your formerly lamp-lit room, but you’ll be limited to turning the new overhead light on and off by plugging it in and unplugging it. To add an easy wall switch, I scoured Amazon and found this gem (which I now have 3 of, around the house!): Westek RFK100LC/RFK101LC Wall Mounted Switch and Plug-in Receiver (linked above).

This product comes in two parts: a wireless switch (basically, a remote control) that you attach to your wall, and a remotely-controlled outlet which turns the light on or off according to the signal sent by the wireless switch.

Smartphone Control: For control from a smartphone, use a smart power strip instead of (or in addition to) the switch.

Here are a few views of how the setup works in my living room to control two lights. First, the zoomed out view:

Here’s a more detailed view of the setup:

And here’s a panorama of the room without furniture, scrunched up so you can see the entire setup:

I still consider my living room a work in progress (those couches were out the next week! yikes!), but love how it’s coming together. Here are a few work-in-progress shots.

Summer 2022 Update: Using this method for auxiliary lighting

In 2015 I made the big plunge into tiny living, and two chandeliers made it past the “love-inventory” and were packed into my downsized life. Although my 280 square foot apartment in downtown Seattle had overhead lighting, it never seemed bright enough to push back the gloom of Seattle winter enough to work on the art, craft, and DIY projects that I love.

So I hung a chandelier in my apartment and repeated this method once again, this time with one change: instead of mounting the wireless remote as a light switch, I hung it with velcro-style command strips. This allows me to carry the remote to bed with me on nights I want the room fully lit as I get ready for bed, and turn the light off- without getting up- when I’m ready for bed. This has been such a small luxury- and such a delight to settle into bed with a book by the warm light of a chandelier.