More home fixin'

Well, we did some more fix-up stuff around the house. Somehow, time seems to slip away before we have many things on our "to do" list finished. But we did get the most difficult light installed. Man, it was a bugger to do. We have so often encountered shoddy workmanship in the way the original stuff was done, when this house was built. And here was another. The electrical box (the junction box - it's the rectangular or square box that is recessed into the ceiling and has a ring around it, for attaching the wiring through the box's opening. Then you can screw the actual light fixture into the "ring" which surrounds this box.) Anyway, this was a non-standard box - and even worse was the fact that it was not flush with the ceiling, but was sort of shoved in there so that one side was a bit recessed and the other part was not flush with the surface.

Now we're talking about replacing a flush-with-the-ceiling light with a light which has a small, drop-down pole, so the new light is not flush with the ceiling. This whole thing was the very devil to do, and I ended up pushing Drummer out the door to see if there was any intelligent being at Home Depot who could give us some options, short of trashing the damned light and going with another flush-mount (not my first choice) one. If you have done any DYI at all, you have probably run into the many incompetents that now staff Home Depot stores. This is what happens when management is more concerned with the bottom line and the the customer be damned. Harrummph. Drummer actually found a good guy and picked this guy's brain, returning with a universal adapter which screws in, across the open box, and makes it easier to mount a light on such a non-standard box. We were on side-by-side ladders to get this task accomplished, so that one of us would not have arm fatigue and drop the damned light. Even when we got the base installed, the drop-down pole thing-y was definitely not plumb, thanks to the poorly installed junction box. At that point, we had brain fatigue. So we hung it up for the day and I turned it over to Drummer. Sometimes it is better to save your marriage than it is to finish a project.

So, of course, we had hoped to start painting the master bedroom - and that did not even get started. We've had the paint for a month or so, but haven't gotten around to putting it on the walls. I am anxious for this, because it will bring some color into the room. Lowe's carries some great colors and this is from the Earth Elements line. It is called Burnished Copper. Kind of a deep, orange-y color - like adobe or something in that color line. That will go on the wall behind the headboard. Then we got another color from that same line - something in the deep tan or very light brown family - and that will go on the other 3 walls. Since the paint has probably separated by now, Drummer will take it back to Lowe's and get it remixed. Maybe we can get the painting started this weekend?

I am very happy and proud of what we have accomplished so far. Neither one of us is all that mechanically inclined, but we both have a good eye for color and style. So we just limp through the more difficult stuff until we get it done. One thing that we have learned from our faux painting jobs - you can work together and no one has to die. Or, for that matter, no one has to be right - whichever way gets something done and looks okay, is fine!

It was nice to come home last night and see that Drummer had given it the ol' college try (and just what does that mean, anyway?) and had jimmied the drop-down pole into being closer to the vertical. It was definitely close enough that we were able to install the frosty-glass portion that covered the light bulbs, and no one can tell that the pole is a bit off-kilter. Hurray!! Looks great, too.

Well, I need to get this posted. Back sometime soon...