Let there be light

Five days later, and I think I'm finally ready to talk about this weekend's traumatic experience of hanging a dining room chandelier. Traumatic. Experience.

Firstly, I can only blame myself for this business. I should have had my act together and gone to the darn store to buy the chandelier while the contractors were still around working on the kitchen. Then they could have hung it for me. But I didn't.

This past week, I realized I was sick and tired of looking at the single, pathetic light bulb hanging from an exposed socket in the ceiling and decided to do something about it. (Not by myself though. That would have been even more traumatic. Can you imagine the hot mess that would have been me with electrical work? Oh wait. I'm giving away the rest of the story.)

Mr. B has been traveling A LOT lately. As in, I haven't seen him for two weeks, his back is still nagging him and causing extreme pain, but yet, I wanted this light situation resolved. This makes for an enjoyable Saturday DIY activity, yes? Quality couples time? Not so much. I should have seen where this was going....

Fast forward through our trip to Lowe's and the minor domestic disturbance reasonable discussion that occurred in the ceiling fan section. (Why were we in the fan section when we needed a chandelier? Because Mr. B's back was hurting him so much he needed to sit down. Like I said, I should have known this wasn't going to end well.) In the end, we brought home this little beauty and decided to get to work.

Pretty, eh? The oil-rubbed look matches the knobs, pulls and sink hardware in the kitchen.

And get to work we did. Here's an actual quote from me as the project began: "I mean, really, how long can this take? It's pretty simple - follow the instructions and in an hour or two we'll be enjoying dinner and wine under the new light fixture."  Goodness, I'm naive sometimes.

Let's start with an important piece of information that will help you, friendly reader, understand actually how dumb I am: We started this project at approximately 4:45pm. The sun was setting. It was already getting dark. You see where I am going? No? Good, because that makes me feel better.

After turning off the electric fuse to the kitchen/dining room (don't want to blow ourselves or the house up!) we had the last few streams of natural light coming in through the windows. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Again, fast forward two hours and we're in the pitch black - with a freakin flashlight - at one of the most critical stages of the process.

If we weren't at each other's wits ends in the ceiling fan section at Lowe's, we certainly were now. (Mr. B. was upset that I was drinking a glass of wine during this project. Does anyone else think that is ridiculous? It's Saturday night at 7:00 and we're hanging a chandelier in the dark. Wine is a must.)

The situation was basically unbearable (I'm so dramatic sometimes) because Mr. B couldn't get up on the stepladder. He had to direct everything from his chair. And frankly, we communicate well, but sometimes his directions of "where to screw what" can be a little lacking. I was just a few inches too short to comfortably reach the ceiling so had to stand on my tippy toes (accident waiting to happen) and on top of all this, I had to hold the chandelier by myself up to the ceiling. Did I mention I have the weakest shoulder muscles in the world?  

Enough is enough. I called a time-out on the project, went to pick up a pizza and tucked myself in bed to continue the adventure the next day. Enough of hanging a chandelier in the dark.

Take two on Sunday started out much better. In fact, we got the thing up in record time. Only to realize we forgot a part and had to take it all. down. again. Seriously? But at this point, we knew how to hang it up and from there, it was only another hour or so to get to the moment of truth. The flip of the switch. And would you believe it, it turned on the first time.

Well, yes and no:

Mr. B: Is it on? I flipped the right fuse.

Me: No! It's still dark in here.

Mr. B: Did you turn on the light switch?

Me: Oops. That was dumb. (Turns on light switch.) No! It's still dark in here.

Mr. B: Did you adjust the dimmer?

Me: (Why does he always have to be right?) Oh there we go! It's on! We have light!

So the final product is this - hallelujah we have light!