If you’ve done the steps in my previous post on wiring a kitchen, you have done all the ground work for wiring and now comes what I consider the most fun part—the part where you actually get power to some of your outlets!

The first step is to attach all of your outlet boxes. You should have markings where these go, so it should be a simple matter of nailing in your boxes. Assuming you are wiring a new kitchen, you should not have walls up yet so you can use what’s called “new work” boxes. These are generally pretty simple to install since you just have to hold them up to your markings and pound in the nails they come with. If you do have walls already, you’ll have to use the “old work” boxes which I have found a bit more difficult to use but which still work well.

When selecting boxes to use, you should be able to use a standard single-gang box for all of the outlets on the small appliance circuit as well as things like the fridge or freezer. For other outlets, you will need to consider two things:

1. The fill diagram which will ensure you have enough space
2. How big the outlet itself is.

In particular, you will likely need a bigger box for your oven/stove/range outlet (as well as a 4-prong outlet).

Once you have your boxes, you need to run your wires. This should be relatively easy since you have holes drilled and each box is labeled with the type of wire it needs. For the small appliance circuits, you can run just one wire from the circuit box to the first outlet in the circuit and then just run wires between the outlets after that. For now, don’t connect the wires into the circuit breaker—you don’t want to be working on live wires!

Now it’s time to actually wire in the outlets. The first thing you should do is read whatever information came with the specific outlets you bought since every outlet is a bit different. You want to figure out where to attach the hot (black) and neutral (white) wire as well as how to attach the wires (some outlets have screw terminals you wrap the wire around while others have small holes you push the wires into). For GFCI outlets, you also need to make sure you know which terminals are for the load and which are for the line. These are often labelled directly on the outlet itself. Basically, line is the side of the device where you bring power in from the panel and load is where you take power from the GFCI outlet to all other outlets on the circuit. Note that to make a circuit GFCI-protected, you only need one GFCI outlet on that circuit and it should be the one that has the wires from the panel.

Armed with this information, you are now ready to wire some outlets. I would recommend starting with the first outlet in the circuit. Here are the basic steps to follow:

1. Wire the hot and neutral wire from the cable bringing in power to the appropriate terminals. If your outlet is GFCI, these need to go into the line terminals. If the outlet is not GFCI, pick the most convenient places for wiring.
2. Wire the hot and neutral wire from the outgoing cable (if one exists) to the other open spots on the outlet (load if a GFCI).
3. Wire the ground cables from both incoming and outgoing cables together and wire them to a pigtail cable from the outlet’s ground screw.
4. Tuck wires back into the outlet as best as you can. Depending on how full your box is, this can be the most difficult part of wiring. I generally find it helpful to fold each set of wires into a different corner to keep them from interfering with each other.
5. Push in the outlet. This can be somewhat difficult depending on how many wires you have in the box. Sometimes, wiggling it a bit can help, but don’t force it too much. If you really can’t get it in, try removing the outlet and tucking the wires further back into the box. I would sometimes use the top of my lineman’s pliers to do this though you do need to be careful that you don’t accidentally pull off some of the insulation.
6. Screw in the outlet using the provided screws.

Once you have all of your outlets in (or wires run if you’re wiring directly to appliances), you are finally ready to connect your circuits to the circuit breaker. Here are the basic steps we followed (note this assumes you have a circuit breaker and not fuses or something like that):

1. Flip the main power switch on the breaker box (it should be a giant breaker at the top). Note that though this does kill most of the power to the box, the wires coming in are still live so you still have to be careful when working in the breaker box. I tried to do as much work as possible with a screwdriver that had an insulated handle instead of using my fingers.
2. Unscrew the cover from your breaker box.
3. Loosen whatever connector is holding the wires coming into the box. We actually have multiple holes at the top of the box, and I learned during this process that not all holes are created equal. I started by trying to put our new wires into holes that looked like they had fewer wires, but a couple of those turned out to be the smaller holes and thus did not fit my new wires.
4. Thread the wire through the hole and then strip off the outer coating. I find it’s much easier to thread wires through when they are still bundled together though we did have to do it both ways (we needed to rerun some existing wires). Try to leave extra wire in the box just in case you have to move the breaker position later. I left enough to run the hot wire all the way to the bottom of the box and back up to the breaker we were using. 
5. If you are wiring to an existing breaker, pop the breaker off the bars. For ours, this involved rocking the breaker towards the outside of the box to pull it off of one bar and then pulling it out. If you’re getting a new breaker, I recommend popping out one of your current breakers to take to the store with you so you get the right type of breaker.
6. Strip off the outer sheathing from your wire and separate the ground and neutral from the hot. Run the ground and neutral wires to the wire bus (ours was in the top right corner of the box—it should be fairly obvious since all other ground and neutral wires will be going there). Run the black wire to the position of your circuit breaker. If you’re wiring a 240V circuit for the stove/range/oven, you will have a red wire as well which will be attached to the second attachment of the breaker so that there is 240V running between the black and red wires.
7. Attach the wires to their respective positions. For most breakers, this means loosening a screw, pushing the wire inside, and then tightening the screw. For most neutral/ground connections, you push the wire onto the bus under a connector and then screw it down.
8. Pop the breaker back into the box and turn it off. Then, tuck the wires back in as best as you can and tighten the screws on the connector where the wire enters the box.
9. Screw on the box cover and flip the breaker for the main power.

You’ll notice above that I recommend you flip the new breaker before turning on the main power. This is because I always like to have someone standing near the outlets the first time I flip on a new breaker as well as a second person at the breaker box. That way, if something goes catastrophically wrong, you can flip the breaker off again quickly (hopefully, it would short and flip itself but better safe than sorry).

Now, you are ready to test everything. I got this tester which is really easy to use and should catch most wiring problems. It even has a GFCI button for making sure that part of your system works (I did find that it was a little too easy to hit that button, so I kept needing to reset the GFCI, but it’s a small price to pay to know my wiring is correct). I would recommend still having someone standing by the circuit just in case as the second person tests all the outlets. Once all appear as correct, you are done. Congratulations!