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I'm looking at lighting a kitchen in a wood cabin and to try and make the wiring (which will sit on the outside of the ceiling) as neat as possible, I'm wondering if I can wire 3 separate lights in the fashion I've illustrated below (taking an illustration that was done for 2 lights and trying to add a third, but not in a daisy chain fashion).

Illustration/diagram:

Possible wiring

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

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    Yep that works as drawn. – Tyson Feb 19 '18 at 2:48
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People use black and white because they only sell NM cable in black-white or black-white-red. We certainly wish we could use more illustrative colors.

Let's recolor the wires to indicate their actual function. You can do the same thing with colored tape.

enter image description here

With red being switched-hot, it seems clear you are doing the right thing.

  • Lamps should get switched-hot and neutral check
  • switches should get hot and switched-hot check
  • neutral should be available in the switch box for future smart switches check.

Looks right to me.

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  • In the US, isn't black a normal color for the hot, while white is neutral and bare/green is ground? Red is also hot, but no more indicative of hot than black, is it? Why insist on coloring the wires "to indicate their actual function"? I'm not a trained electrician by any means, so I'm missing something on why red is better in this diagram than the black was. – FreeMan Aug 2 at 14:15
  • @FreeMan In this particular example, this circuit is fairly simple, so. your brain cells can handle the only ambiguous area, in the switch box... but just wait til a 3-way is involved. Or two! – Harper - Reinstate Monica Aug 2 at 14:30
  • That makes sense. I was just wondering why you made the effort on this one. ;) – FreeMan Aug 2 at 15:20

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