As with most houses there are a few things that are
irritating after getting moved in and our current home is no exception. One of them was a giant whirlpool tub in the
master bath that was never used and got removed to make better use of the space
see Master Bath Remodeling. Another is
how the interior garage lights are switched.
Currently the lights in the garage are switched at the door between the
garage into the living area, between the garage and an unfinished store
room and one between the garage and the shop.
However, there is not one between at the person door in the garage to
the outside. The drawing below shows
what I mean.
If I could get access to the wiring from an attic or
basement, I could add another 4-way switch by the back door so the existing
garage ceiling lights could be switched from there too. I’ve wired multiple switches together to
control a light and it takes some time since controlling a light from four
different locations is not the easiest thing to put together. Here because the house is on a concrete slab
and has a flat roof without an attic there is no way to get to the wiring
without chopping holes in the walls or roof and that’s not going to
happen. My planned solution is to pull
power from the existing switch at the back door to feed a new switch then use
it to control a new wall mounted light next to the back door as in the
elevation below. That’s fairly easy
however, there is still the problem of not being able to get wire to a new
switch next to the door from the garage into the living area to control the new
light from there. The solution could be
to install a powered smart switch at the garage/outside back door and using a
battery remote at the garage/house door. 
At least that’s the plan.
The first step is open up the existing switch box and check to see if
there is power available to add the new switch.
A little testing with a volt meter verified an available always on power
source so that’s good.
Next was to transfer the location of the existing outside
light to the inside wall so I wouldn’t end up cutting a hole in the drywall for
the new light’s junction box only to find out it’s in the same place as the
outside light’s junction box (left photo).
The blue tape (red arrow) is the center of the outside light’s box and
the carboard cutout above it is about where the new light will go.
Laying out and cutting the hole for the new switch and
light’s junction boxes is next. That’s
followed by pulling wire from the existing switch box to the new switch box and
from that box up to the new light’s box.
All of that has been done in the photo below where you can see the wire
hanging out of the openings.
With the holes cut and wires pulled I could install the
junction boxes then make the necessary wiring connections and install a
temporary light switch and light fixture.
The permanent light switches will get installed later since they need to
be ordered now that I know the wiring side works as planned. The light itself will get installed once it’s
built which will be the main focus of this project from here on.
Here is a rendering of the light and an exploded plan of
the parts needed except for the glass.
In the beginning I was thinking of making it from red oak but then
decided to first go through my box of short leftovers and usable offcuts to see
what was in there. Turns out that red
oak is the majority of the pieces available so that worked out well and is what
I will use. 
Below is a dimensioned plan for each of the pieces
needed, there size and quantity. In
total there are 44 wood pieces for the light frame but only eight different
shapes. Looks like there could be some
jigs and fixtures used to make multiple identical parts.
More sorting through the leftovers weeding out any that
had flaws or that did not color match well enough. This narrowed the available stack down to the
odds and ends in the photo below. The
pieces vary quite a bit in length, thickness and width so I will be
spending some time measuring and talking to myself working to get the best
cutting plan with the least amount of waste.
There is also a few whose color doesn’t quite match so they will get set
aside.
With the majority of the odds and ends marked as to how
they will be cut down I started on the four corner posts. The black and white drawings below show a
front and back view of the post along with its dimensions. To simplify the cutting of the notch in the
back of the posts the blank used will contain two posts plus a little extra.
That’s shown in the right two color front/back drawings. The area shown in light yellow will get cut
away when the posts are sawn apart and trimmed to final size. Milling the pair at the same time makes the
cutting of the notch easier and safer.
The layout for the double post blank is shown on the end
of the board. The pencil line on the
left marks the size of one of the two blanks I will cut off that board.
I cut the notch using a stack dado blade made up of three
1/8” thick cutters that will cut a 3/8” dado.
Once the correct depth of cut is set the blank gets close to being
centered then run through the tablesaw resulting in the cut in the left
photo. Moving the fence to the left cuts
more out of the notch then when the piece is reversed and run through the saw a
second time the result is a perfectly centered notch. The fence is moved a little more to the left
and the pieces run through the saw. This
is repeated until the edge legs are the correct width ending up with what’s
shown in the right photo.
Next Up – Corner Posts, Rough Blanks, Main Horizontal Pieces & Glue-up
