I have a bedroom in the basement that has a ledge that goes around the entire room. On one side, I am going to build a "planter" that sits on the ledge, fill it with floral foam and then place willow branches( willow branches ) in the foam, that reach to the ceiling. I would like to cover the entire wall behind the willow branches with lights. My question is, which type of lighting should I use? String lights, led strips, etc? Why and how to install?

I can supply a drawing example if need be. Thanks!

do you mean "the entire wall" or "the wall behind the willow branches?"

if all you are planning on doing is putting a light strip behind the planter so the branches stand out against the light, a LED strip or the shortest piece of rope light you can find will do very well.

if you are talking about the entire wall, that's major surgery. I've see a silly example some architect wanted to boast about of a Christmas light set buried in ceiling plaster as stars. that's got a 2 year life span. better to get a boatload of raw LEDs, or those 12 volt diffuse non-lensed LEDs with voltage droppers in the wires, get new wallboard, poke holes and insert LEDs, wire up in strings of 15 to run on 120 volts, and mount that on the wall. get a metal project box or a 6x6x4 electrical box at a wholesaler, put a fuseholder, a puck diode (one of the 400v 20 amp epoxy full-wave rectifier assemblies) and a 20 uF 250 WV capacitor, provide DC to that wiring panel you made, and let it all glow.

the important thing is that no LED be allowed to draw more than 5 mA at its working voltage, typically 3 volts. so either as the pre-wired 12v assemblies, or by your own hand, there needs to be a dropping resistor limiting the LED current.

that is a 15-20 year installation. a string or two of the lights will start blipping dead after 8-10 years, so it's always important to intermix the physical strings, since this is not accessable for service.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: swschrad,