Track lighting for art

[elf]

So I've hired someone to remove all the horsehair plaster in my stairwell and the two hallways it abuts. Over the 26 years I've lived here I've filled those hallways with framed art of various kinds, leaving a trail of plaster crumbs on the stairs and floor every time I had to put a hole in the walls.

In the last couple of years I have also had to brace myself against one of the walls and hold on to the stair railing to get down stairs. Knees and hips being 80 provoke slow stair descents and using whatever is available for balance reinforcement.

As a result, the horsehair plaster has crumbled so badly where I've braced myself that it has fallen off the wall, revealing the lathe behind.

So now I will have a stairwell that I can poke holes in without plaster crumbling, and two long hallways upon which to hang more art.

So one hallway is maybe 8 feet long and the other one is more like 12 feet, and at one end of the shorter hallway there is a single overhead light fixture. At an end of the other hallway is also the same lame thing, right at the base of the stairwell.

I'd like to install track lighting in the ceilings of both hallways so I can actually see the art.

Now the questions: Shouldn't I get 6' track for the shorter hall, and even longer track for the longer hall? The shorter hallway has two doorways on either side of the overhead light fixture, so the first 30" of the track won't light anything. The longer hall has a doorway on one side and the bottom of the stairwell on the other, so again, the first 30" of track won't light much.

When I look at track lighting kits, it seems like after 4' all the tracks branch out from a central electrical connection. Is there longer track that begins at one end, rather than the middle?

If I have to have the ceilings rewired, I'll have to get an electrician to change the current wiring. Presumably that's something that the sheet rock installers are not licensed to do, and thus needs to be coordinated so it gets done while the horsehair is down and before the sheet rock goes up.

Does that sound right?

[hawkeye54]

Re: Track lighting for art

Emily, you are correct in your assumptions - track lighting track comes in 4 foot or 8 foot sections, and the ones sold at my 'big-box' store can have the power input at the end, or various places especially along the length - a common type of track is called 'h-track' ( so named for its power contact configuration. It is important that you purchase track and light units which are compatible with each other. Also some track light units can be LED, or others halogen, etc. When I built out our retail store circa 2000, I installed a lot of track lighting . Disclaimer : I am NOT a licensed electrician


Rick

[elf]

Re: Track lighting for art

Well, I can't find any kits longer than 4 feet except ones that have to be installed from the middle. I gather one can buy the track as parts rather than a kit?

[Jim Mahan]

Re: Track lighting for art

I used to sell lighting and do maintenance and repair of various lighting products, in a dedicated retail light store, thirty-some years ago. It seems like I recall that you buy connector pieces that allow two or more sections to be joined to create longer runs.

[hawkeye54]

Re: Track lighting for art

Jim, you are correct, there is a piece which fits into each of the track pieces, to make a continuous length.




Rick

[ron ll]

Re: Track lighting for art

Maybe check into surface mounted LEDs. I think you can feed low voltage wire to a single transformer at your existing fixture. Lighting tech has changed a LOT in the past few years.

[Gerarddm]

Re: Track lighting for art

^ What I have in my shop. Cheap at Lowe's, 4' sections.

[Todd Bradshaw]

Re: Track lighting for art

Mine came from a big box store, where you could buy 4' or 2' lengths. Then there are connectors to join them to the desired length which look like this, as well as end caps fpr the ends of a run.

1.jpg

Then the power is applied by positioning one of these gizmos over the track which is then wired into the wall.

2.jpg

The light fixtures are then clipped into the tracks where needed and have built in swivels to aim them. I started with regular bulbs but have been replacing them with LEDs when they wear out.

3.jpg

I'm sure that there are fancier versions available, but these have worked fine for the past fifteen years or so.

[Jim Mahan]

Re: Track lighting for art

My lighting expertise is forty years old. In the meantime, my subsequent career (such as it was) doing graphic design and print advertising included managing lighting for product photo shoots etc for reproduction in print and electronic media, and makes me curious about the nuances of the light emitted from contemporary bulbs and fixtures, as it would pertain to accurately rendering the displayed art. A lighting shop could give you that advice. The right color of light for various activities is esoteric but is to art appreciation as high-end sound reproduction is to music appreciation. In addition to the color aspect, you'll be faced with selecting the right power and focus, as between spots and floods, and wattage output equivalents. I would expect as a photographer you'd be bothered by a less than perfect light source. While on that subject, another factor to consider while you're rehabbing the walls is the color of paint which will also affect the apparent color in your artworks.

^ What I have in my shop. Cheap at Lowe's, 4' sections.

Don't do that. Good for the shop, not so good, prolly, in the house.

[jpatrick]

Re: Track lighting for art

If this is a typical narrow three or four foot wide hallway, then track lighting isn't the best option. But if you do use it, you will need flood type bulbs in order to avoid a bunch of tiny pools of light. A better option might be to not use track at all but a dispersed indirect light. Or even a few recessed cans in the ceiling that hold flood bulbs.

The big box places are not the best sources for specialty lighting.

Jeff

[Nicholas Carey]

Re: Track lighting for art

So I've hired someone to remove all the horsehair plaster in my stairwell and the two hallways it abuts. Over the 26 years I've lived here I've filled those hallways with framed art of various kinds, leaving a trail of plaster crumbs on the stairs and floor every time I had to put a hole in the walls.

In the last couple of years I have also had to brace myself against one of the walls and hold on to the stair railing to get down stairs. Knees and hips being 80 provoke slow stair descents and using whatever is available for balance reinforcement.

As a result, the horsehair plaster has crumbled so badly where I've braced myself that it has fallen off the wall, revealing the lathe behind.

So now I will have a stairwell that I can poke holes in without plaster crumbling, and two long hallways upon which to hang more art.

I don't know about track lighting.

But if you're hanging art and changing things up now and again, consider using old-school picture rail and hooks and hanging the pictures without putting holes in the wall. Makes it much easier to hang new art or rearrange things. And you can hang more than one picture from a single hook. You can go old school, with wooden picture rail and brass hooks (using heavy-duty monofilament fishing line for the drops does make it less busy than this):



Any decent lumberyard should have picture rail in their molding catalog. And the hooks are widely available, too. The ones you'll find at a hardware store or the Big Orange Box are likely cheap stamped steel ones. But you can do better at a place like the House of Antique Hardware:

https://www.houseofantiquehardware.com/shop-by-type/vintage-home-accessories/picture-hanging-hardware/picture-rail-hanging-hooks

Or you can go with a more contemporary solution, that's less obtrusive.

https://www.ashanging.com/en_us/products/systems

https://systematicart.com/

https://www.picturehangingsystems.com/

Some of them are actually inset into the sheet rock:



This one includes power for lights:

https://www.picturehangingsystems.com/picture-rail-systems/hanging-systems-with-lighting

[elf]

Re: Track lighting for art

A picture molding set up would require getting out the kick-step, sliding the hook around, getting down off the kick step to see if the hook is in the right place, repeat until it finally is, then hang framed art. Then on to the next with repeats of getting up and down off the kick-step to locate the next item. Finally, when it's all done, two weeks later I need to take one of the pieces to the Art Center for a month and replace it with something a different size and shape which would require moving all the hooks on the picture rail yet again, up and down the kick step.

I was thinking something more low tech, like a push pin, actually.

[elf]

Re: Track lighting for art

Recently I've even been swiping the top and bottom or corners of an unframed print with rubber cement and pressing it against the wall.

[elf]

Re: Track lighting for art

If this is a typical narrow three or four foot wide hallway, then track lighting isn't the best option. But if you do use it, you will need flood type bulbs in order to avoid a bunch of tiny pools of light. A better option might be to not use track at all but a dispersed indirect light. Or even a few recessed cans in the ceiling that hold flood bulbs.

The big box places are not the best sources for specialty lighting.

Jeff

Recessed cans in the ceiling are lovely for dining room tables. For this I'd need an electrician to wire them, however.

[elf]

Re: Track lighting for art

My lighting expertise is forty years old. In the meantime, my subsequent career (such as it was) doing graphic design and print advertising included managing lighting for product photo shoots etc for reproduction in print and electronic media, and makes me curious about the nuances of the light emitted from contemporary bulbs and fixtures, as it would pertain to accurately rendering the displayed art. A lighting shop could give you that advice. The right color of light for various activities is esoteric but is to art appreciation as high-end sound reproduction is to music appreciation. In addition to the color aspect, you'll be faced with selecting the right power and focus, as between spots and floods, and wattage output equivalents. I would expect as a photographer you'd be bothered by a less than perfect light source. While on that subject, another factor to consider while you're rehabbing the walls is the color of paint which will also affect the apparent color in your artworks.

Yes, no question wall color is going to be very important, especially with the very high stairwell ceiling and the very dark stain on the stair treads, railing etc. My dining room is a color called Coconut, which is a very, tiny, tiny bit on the cool side of white, and I'm thinking of repeating that in the halls and stairwell. Too much tint in the paint can create quite an undesirably conflict, even with black frame and white mat between the art and the wall.

And with the predominantly blue/green bias in my way of seeing and images.