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Shout-Out Sunday No. 12 - One Very Special Bloke
Today's Shout-Out Sunday, for 23 March 2014, goes to a person, not a web site, and that person is Paul - that fabulous guy I married... seen below, in the mirror:
Today was the day we installed the new ceiling light fixture in the new Reading Room. And it was, as predicted, a trying challenge for us.
When I first bought this light fixture, we planned to call an electrician in and have it done right. But once I went online to a few YouTube videos showing how simple a job it can be to replace a ceiling fixture, well, we thought about it and decided we'd give it a try ourselves.
Just for reference, here's the old chandelier we had to take down:
and here's the new one:
and here it is all installed in the new Reading Room:
This guy here (below) did it all, basically.
He knew exactly ZERO about installing a light in the ceiling, or anywhere else, for that matter.
I supervised and read out the instructions to him while he sat and pondered how to go about this job.
I had visions of it just taking 10 minutes - put up the bar, attach the white and black wires to each other and the grounding wire, put the main light-holder on, then the light bulbs, then the shade and then the final wire thingy.... easy peasy, right?
Not so easy-peasy at all.
It took us a while to figure out which screws went where with the metal bar that holds the whole thing up. We were mis-understanding it at first but we had a mental breakthrough and got that figured out. Paul did the whole thing himself which meant that he had to stand there (he got out his step ladder) and hold that thing above his head for the entire time he was working, and figuring things out, which is not easy for the layman.
Oh, yes, he's a strong guy since he IS a lobsterman, but like he said, he hasn't worked for 3 months basically (winter) and his arm muscles have relaxed a bit.
I could never have done it myself, I know that. And part way through the operation, he started peeling off his shirts. He had three layers on and he was sweating bullets while holding that thing up there. I helped pull off his two outer shirts for him and he was down to his tee shirt.
Finally, about a long hour after we started this job, we finished it and he went down to flip the circuit breaker on for that room. At first he flipped the wrong one and there was no light... I was crushed! Then he realized he'd gotten the wrong one and flipped the right one back on and voila:
This light turns on via a switch by the front door and we have a "dimmer switch" on it - the picture above is dimmed a bit.
We probably won't really use this light much. We hardly ever used the chandelier in all our years here except if we had company over for dinner. Now that we have our reading lamps and the one larger table lamp, that's what we'll use regularly, but I like having this ceiling light, and I like the nautical design of it.
(I must apologize to my friend Sheila, though, for the color of it - brown! I thought it was a rusty red color but it wasn't. I suppose I could paint it but I won't... it's up there and it's staying up there!)
(BTW, Sheila is of the opinion that we have way too much brown in our house and she IS right, of course, but that's just the way it is...)
So... our Reading Room is basically done now. I put a CD/radio in there and I have been enjoying this room just about every afternoon when the house is quiet, I've seen all the news I want to know about, and it's a good place to be. Which is all I wanted out of this room.
The forsythia have bloomed and now are turning green.
I plan to leave them in the water until it's warm enough outside to plant and then I'll try planting these twigs into the earth to see if I can get a couple of forsythia bushes growing out front.
So, this is a big Shout-Out to that guy of mine - a man for all seasons, a man who will go the distance when I need him to even though he's totally uncomfortable doing this type of work. We did it - HE DID IT! And I thank him very much, indeed.
Cheers for our Life Partners!
Bex & Co.
It's in every one of us to be wise;
Find your heart, open up both your eyes.
We can all know every thing without ever knowing why.
It's in every one of us, by and bye.
~ John Denver & The Muppets ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Today was the day we installed the new ceiling light fixture in the new Reading Room. And it was, as predicted, a trying challenge for us.
When I first bought this light fixture, we planned to call an electrician in and have it done right. But once I went online to a few YouTube videos showing how simple a job it can be to replace a ceiling fixture, well, we thought about it and decided we'd give it a try ourselves.
Just for reference, here's the old chandelier we had to take down:
and here's the new one:
and here it is all installed in the new Reading Room:
This guy here (below) did it all, basically.
He knew exactly ZERO about installing a light in the ceiling, or anywhere else, for that matter.
I supervised and read out the instructions to him while he sat and pondered how to go about this job.
I had visions of it just taking 10 minutes - put up the bar, attach the white and black wires to each other and the grounding wire, put the main light-holder on, then the light bulbs, then the shade and then the final wire thingy.... easy peasy, right?
Not so easy-peasy at all.
It took us a while to figure out which screws went where with the metal bar that holds the whole thing up. We were mis-understanding it at first but we had a mental breakthrough and got that figured out. Paul did the whole thing himself which meant that he had to stand there (he got out his step ladder) and hold that thing above his head for the entire time he was working, and figuring things out, which is not easy for the layman.
Oh, yes, he's a strong guy since he IS a lobsterman, but like he said, he hasn't worked for 3 months basically (winter) and his arm muscles have relaxed a bit.
I could never have done it myself, I know that. And part way through the operation, he started peeling off his shirts. He had three layers on and he was sweating bullets while holding that thing up there. I helped pull off his two outer shirts for him and he was down to his tee shirt.
Finally, about a long hour after we started this job, we finished it and he went down to flip the circuit breaker on for that room. At first he flipped the wrong one and there was no light... I was crushed! Then he realized he'd gotten the wrong one and flipped the right one back on and voila:
This light turns on via a switch by the front door and we have a "dimmer switch" on it - the picture above is dimmed a bit.
We probably won't really use this light much. We hardly ever used the chandelier in all our years here except if we had company over for dinner. Now that we have our reading lamps and the one larger table lamp, that's what we'll use regularly, but I like having this ceiling light, and I like the nautical design of it.
(I must apologize to my friend Sheila, though, for the color of it - brown! I thought it was a rusty red color but it wasn't. I suppose I could paint it but I won't... it's up there and it's staying up there!)
(BTW, Sheila is of the opinion that we have way too much brown in our house and she IS right, of course, but that's just the way it is...)
So... our Reading Room is basically done now. I put a CD/radio in there and I have been enjoying this room just about every afternoon when the house is quiet, I've seen all the news I want to know about, and it's a good place to be. Which is all I wanted out of this room.
The forsythia have bloomed and now are turning green.
I plan to leave them in the water until it's warm enough outside to plant and then I'll try planting these twigs into the earth to see if I can get a couple of forsythia bushes growing out front.
So, this is a big Shout-Out to that guy of mine - a man for all seasons, a man who will go the distance when I need him to even though he's totally uncomfortable doing this type of work. We did it - HE DID IT! And I thank him very much, indeed.
Cheers for our Life Partners!
Bex & Co.
Find your heart, open up both your eyes.
We can all know every thing without ever knowing why.
It's in every one of us, by and bye.
~ John Denver & The Muppets ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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