A residential lighting upgrade in St Merryn covering circuit modifications, dimmer switch installation and LED downlight replacement - giving the homeowner full independent control over their living room lighting and a cleaner, more efficient hallway.
A house in St Merryn came to us with a fairly straightforward brief that turned into a satisfying bit of work once we got into it. The living room had two pendant fittings that needed replacing with four new ones the customer had sourced themselves, and the hallway had a couple of older halogen downlights that were well overdue a change. Simple enough on paper, but the switching side of things required a bit more thought.
The customer wanted independent dimmable control over each side of the living room – so rather than one circuit running the whole lot from a single switch, the room would be split into two separate zones. That kind of flexibility makes a real difference in a room used for different things at different times of day. Having the ability to dim one side down while keeping the other brighter, or run both at the same level when needed, is the sort of thing that sounds like a small detail but changes how a space actually works day to day.
To make that happen, the existing single circuit feeding the living room lights needed modifying. An additional cable run was required to separate the circuit into two independently switched and dimmed halves, and because the walls here are masonry, that meant chasing – cutting into the wall to run the new cabling neatly without surface-mounted trunking running across the room. It’s more work than a stud wall job, but it keeps everything clean and the finish is far better for it. Once plastered and decorated over, there’s no sign anything was touched.
With the new cabling in place, we fitted a two-gang dimmer switch at the existing switch position so both circuits are controlled from one plate, in the same place the homeowner was already used to switching from. The dimmers themselves are Enkin units – a reliable choice for LED and dimmable lamp compatibility, which matters when you’re running G9 warm white dimmable lamps across four fittings. Getting dimmer and lamp compatibility right is something that catches people out. Not every dimmer plays nicely with every LED lamp, so it’s worth being deliberate about what goes together.
The four pendant fittings were customer-supplied, which meant fitting and wiring them to the re-sited lighting points. The existing pendants had been positioned without much consideration for the room’s dimensions, so part of this job was repositioning the new ones to sit centrally and with even spacing relative to the room. It’s a detail that makes a difference – lighting that’s off-centre or unevenly spaced draws the eye in a way that’s hard to pin down but always feels slightly wrong. Getting the geometry right before committing to final positions is worth taking the time over.
G9 warm white dimmable lamps were supplied and fitted throughout all four fittings, chosen to give a consistent colour temperature across the room. Warm white sits at the lower end of the Kelvin scale and gives that comfortable, relaxed feel that suits living spaces well, without the cool clinical tone you sometimes get with cheaper LED options. Dimmability with G9s in particular is about matching the lamp spec to the dimmer – run the wrong combination and you can end up with flickering, buzzing, or a very limited dimming range that makes the whole setup feel half-finished.
The hallway side of the job was more straightforward in terms of scope but still needed doing properly. Two recessed halogen downlights were removed and replaced with Collingwood H2 Lite warm white LED units – the same fitting already installed elsewhere in the hallway. Matching existing downlights when replacing individual units is something worth paying attention to. A slight difference in bezel size, colour or beam spread between fittings in the same ceiling run looks untidy and is easily avoided by using the same product. The H2 Lite is a well-regarded fitting and the warm white version keeps the hallway consistent with the rest of the lighting tone through the property.
Halogen downlights running in a hallway might seem like a minor thing, but the energy draw from halogen compared to LED adds up, particularly in a fitting that tends to get left on for long periods. The swap to LED here was as much about practicality as it was about matching the spec – lower running temperatures, longer lamp life and a fraction of the energy consumption compared to what was there before.
Work like this sits in a space that’s often underestimated – it’s not a full rewire, it’s not a new consumer unit, but it involves circuit modifications, chasing, careful lamp and dimmer selection, and considered positioning of fittings. Done well, it’s the kind of electrical work that quietly improves how a home functions without drawing attention to itself, which is generally the point.
