Some detail on the office wiring project...

Some detail on the office wiring project...  As requested by reader John L., who wondered how I was wiring up those power strips.  The power strips came with a 6 foot long 14 gauge power cord, terminated in a molded plug.  When I took the cover off of one, I discovered that the power cord was machine-crimped solidly into internal bus bars.  Since I needed longer (much longer!) power cords, I cut the power cords off, leaving a short stub.  Then I used crimp butt connectors (first photo) to patch in a piece of 12 gauge service cable (heavy duty, flexible power cord) cut to the right length to plug into the outlets I installed (third photo).  I covered the connection with a piece of heat shrink (second photo).  The outlets are fed from the circuit breaker panel with 10 gauge solid Romex in plastic conduit.  The last photo shows the result along one wall; the others are made the same way.

All of the outlet strips are mounted 24" off the floor, where they'll be completely hidden under the workbenches, tables, and desks I'll be putting up. 

The ceiling fan will be in the very center of the room.  This afternoon I bought a special electrical box designed for installation through an existing ceiling, through a hole just big enough to fit the box.  It uses a pair of extensible brackets to fasten itself into to adjacent joists in the ceiling.  In the case of my office, those will actually be the bottoms of factory-made roof trusses, mounted on 16" centers.  The ceiling of my office has about 18" of blown-in insulation on top of it, so I'll be poking a piece of Romex through the ceiling hole and threading it through nine trusses to get it to a wall where I can supply power.  That oughtta be fun!  I think I'll enlist Debbie's help to guide me on that one :)