I need a controller for activating and dimming the lights. I didn't have a readily accessible light switch I could use for them and I thought it'd be fun to control the lights over wifi with your phone/tablet/computer. To that end, I designed my own circuit board, had it printed, and soldered on my components. I also programmed up an ESP8266 chip to have its own web server. If all of this seems like too much work (it is!), you can also get IR remote controls for cheap that will work on LED strips.
The web interface works for any device on our wifi network. It gives you the option to control how bright the lights are and to automatically turn them off after a set amount of time. It's great for watching movies at night.
The next step, of course, is to install the LED strips. These are both cheap and easy to use. They have a self-adhesive on one side and I applied a little hot glue to make sure they wouldn't come off over time.
In the first picture, I'm attaching the strips and fixing the broken cabinet bottoms at the same time. The wedges I'm using are left over from the basement shelves project. They turned out to be more useful than I'd anticipated.
Once everything is hooked up, I tested it out in the daylight before cleaning the kitchen. It adds an accent to the kitchen.
But it's much cooler at night.
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