Lighting Challenges

I want lights in the White Orchid, but I don't want to have to tether it to a cord, so I got some of those battery-operated lights sold in floral departments. They're used to add sparkle to flower arrangements. There are 10 lights, hooked up octopus style to two AA batteries. After thinking about it for a very long time, I finally decided to put the battery pack outside, run five lights for the ground floor under the floor, and pop them up through the floor.

I wasn't sure how the lights would work on the upper floor. I don't even know what lights I want to have up there, in the living quarters. I figured I could run the wires up the backside of the oven wall and worry about the rest later. Today was the day to do it, after I made the pink contractor's foam base.

The top photo shows the battery pack outside. The second photo shows a cover I made to go over the battery pack. The house is in the woods, so the landscaping will be some nice rich earth, pebbles, lichen, shade-loving flowers, etc. After working on all of this for hours, I didn't like it. It was too awkward.

So, I changed my mind and put the battery pack inside!

The downstairs lights will run under the floor and the upstairs lights ... well, the wires will run up that slanted channel, but I'm not sure where they'll go from there. I may run them along the ceiling instead of running them all the way upstairs.

In order to be able to work the little lever on the battery pack to turn the lights on and off, I had to do some surgery on the oven wall. Now the bottom steps and the end of the unit are glued together and can slide out of the way for access to the lever. The entire oven wall will remain unattached, so it can pivot out when the batteries need to be changed, but it won't have to be moved to operate the lights.

I thought this was a good time to stop working. I'm going to have to lengthen the wires on several of the lights before I go any further with this.