I am by no means a person that you would consider “handy” but slowly I am picking up enough skills where I can be considered a novice “Do it Yourselfer”. I wanted to put this guide together for everyone out there that, like me, is a little hesitant to try something simply because they haven't done it before. Prior to doing this project I had installed one medallion in the past for the nursery of my newborn son. Now my son has grown into a “big boy” (two years old) and is moving out of the nursery. The room he is moving into has a standard (ugly) light fixture and I am replacing that with a ceiling fan and putting a ceiling medallion above to add a nice accent feature that would compliment the crown molding.

From the Ceiling Medallion Collection, my wife and I selected the B3025 medallion which was 21” in diameter and seemed a perfect fit for above the ceiling fan in this 8' tall room. I started off by painting the medallion so it would be dry and ready to mount during the installation. I used a paint brush and regular latex paint. Spray paint is also great to use because it goes on so quickly and dries within minutes.

After the medallion was painted, I turned off the electricity, unscrewed the canopy of the original light fixture, and detached the wires from the ceiling. After removing the original light fixture I realized that the bolts holding it up into the ceiling were only 1” long and that I needed longer bolts for the installation. Since the original fixture sat flush with the ceiling and it needed a 1” bolt and my medallion was 1.5” thick where the bracket would sit, I knew that it would require a 2.5” long bolt for doing the installation. After a quick trip to Home Depot I was back on track.

The medallion I had selected did not have a predrilled hole, so I took the ceiling fan bracket and traced the holes that needed cut. I needed one hole in the center that was large enough to bring the wires through and then I needed a little slot on each side for the bolts to go up into the ceiling. Once the holes were traced I put a drill bit on my screw gun and removed the traced areas. Since the canopy would cover the hole, I knew that I didn't have to be too precise when I made the cut.

Normally at this point I would have put a polyurethane adhesive on the back side of the medallion to secure it up to the ceiling, but I wanted to do a dry run quickly just to make sure I had everything in place. I put the medallion up to the ceiling and tightened the bolts through the fixture. Everything fit perfectly and with the bolts holding it up in place it was so snug to the ceiling that I decided to bypass putting any adhesive on the back. So for this project I installed it without adhesive and without any nails.

With the medallion in place my next step was putting together the parts of the fan. I won't go into the details of that since each fan is different and usually you just have to attach the fan blades and the lights. This was the longest part of the installation for me as it took about 20 minutes to get everything put together.

For the next step I needed an extra pair of hands. With the fan put together we lifted it up in place by the ceiling fan bracket and connected the electrical back. I turned the electricity back on and it worked (I am for some reason always surprised when things work the first time).

To finish off the medallion I used white painter's caulk (DAP) and put a little bead around the medallion where it met with the ceiling. Then I used my finger to smooth the line and wiped any excess off with a slightly damp rag. Project Complete!

Total Project Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Total Project Cost (ceiling fan, ceiling medallion, bolts): $96

I was so excited at how easy this was that the next day I decided to install a ceiling medallion above my pre-existing fan in my master bedroom. You can read more about that by viewing the Two Piece Ceiling Medallion Installation.