It's Just a Light

If you look in the photo to the left, just left of my head you will see a blue circle in the ceiling. This is a light fixture. This story is about ignorance and ambition, and that light fixture.

As you might know, not only are we doing construction down stairs, but also on the nursery. The reason for this was two fold; the closet walls in the nursery had to be removed to run electrical, vent, and heating ducts through them for what was going on downstairs, and because Sarah and I hate popcorn ceilings. The nursery had popcorn ceilings when we bought the house - no problem, at some point I'll just scrape the ceiling like I've read on the internet. What the internet doesn't tell you is all those techniques don't work when there are 3 coats of paint on the popcorn texture. After 3 hours of scraping, I had roughly 5 sq/ft complete. This method was not going to work. Next concept, re-drywall the ceiling. While I'm at it, I'll move that light from over the door to the center of the room, where it should have been put in the first place. Little did I know that this entire process, drywall and light, would take the better part of 2 months thanks to ignorance, ambition, and a light fixture.

The project started off well enough. I rented a drywall lift from the orange store, and, by myself, in an afternoon, hung all new drywall, covering that old popcorn. So maybe there were some larger gaps than if some pros had done the job, but I could cover that up with mud. A week later after two coats of mud and poorly managed tape repair job, I was glad to get help from a friend who does this kind of stuff for a living. (Thanks again Matt) In 15 minutes, he had the ceiling looking better than I had in 10 days. So maybe there is some technique to this mudding thing. Next is texture. Ignorance, ambition, and a light fixture.

Since the walls in the closet would need to be redone, our contractor said that when the texture guy came for the closet, he could also do the ceiling. This was great seeing as I would not have to do a job I was estimating would take me an entire day, and spare me the need of buying/renting some equipment I may or may not ever use again. After the texture went up the ceiling looked great. Since I never liked the original location of the light fixture, I had simply covered it with the new drywall. Now all I had to do was install the fixture in the new location. Again, this seemed like a simple enough project: get into attic, remove old electrical junction box, cut wires, cut hole in ceiling, relocate junction box, reconnect wires. Simple, right? At least I have a to do list. Ignorance, ambition, and a light fixture.

I decided to crawl into the attic on an afternoon where the temperature outside had climbed to a comfortable 75, on a rarely sunny spring day. What I had forgotten was that the temperature in the attic was a good 20-25 degrees above ambient. What I also forgot was that the nursery, being at the front of the house, was not only the farthest point from the entrance to the attic, but also where the roof pitch squeezes down and leaves about 2 1/2 feet of vertical room to crawl through. The final thing I forgot was that I am not an electrician. Ignorance, ambition, and a light fixture.

The project was going fairly well. I had been up there an hour or so, scraped both knees getting to the location, but finally found a comfortable spot I could lay down and only bruise one hip while still being fairly productive. I had found the old junction box, determined where the new one would go, cut a new hole down into the nursery, and hammered the new junction box into location. I did think there were quite a few motorcycles going up and down the street behind our house, even though it was a beautiful day outside. Now to the nitty gritty - the electrical wiring. I had to cut all the wires out of the old box because I could not remove the box itself from the joist. This would be no problem as I had ensured the light switch was in the OFF position before getting into the attic. In case you didn't know, in many older homes, the hot wire is routed to the light fixture, through it, and then to the light switch, allowing the one hot line to also power several outlets. Convenient enough for the original installers, not so much if you didn't do your homework and recognize this while jammed into a 2 foot crawl space inside a 95 degree oven of an attic. I should have known when I saw 4 wires coming out of the junction box instead of what I expected, two. No matter... A bright flash of light, cursing, and a melted pair of wire snips later, I've had enough. Out of the attic for the day. Sarah was home to capture the photo above which could be titled "Sweat, Insulation, and Frustration" but I like to call "Ignorance, Ambition, and a Light Fixture".

The next day, the electrician was at the house installing a new electrical panel. It was at this point, when the power to the entire home was cut, that I reentered the attic. Once I regained my prone position over the half finished job I thought to myself, "There really shouldn't be that many motorcycles out and about today, it's raining." I then, by chance, look toward the attic vent on the gable at the front of the house, not 6 feet from where I'm working, and not 2-3 feet from where my legs are braced against a joist for leverage, and I see 2 small wasp nests and 8 or so wasps hanging from the very timber I have been and would be hammering on to complete this project. I have seen a lot of movies where the hero is standing over a bomb and sweat is poring down their face while they try to concentrate on how to diffuse the bomb before it blows up the entire school full of children. I believe I now have an inkling of how that situation might feel. The next hour of work consisted of me holding my breath as I tried to move around and hammer as gently as I could, sweat pouring down my face. IF I GET THIS WRONG - THINK OF THE CHILDREN! Ignorance, ambition, and a light fixture.

When I was retelling this story to Sarah, she asked me, "Why didn't you just climb out and get some wasp spray?" She had obviously not crawled into the attic two days in a row. The amount of effort required to get into and out of my position in the attic made it worth the risk of possibly getting stung by all 8 wasps. As horrible and painful as that would be, I'm not allergic to wasps and nothing would be permanent unless they sting me in the eye.

I also ended up getting help from the electrician of how to properly rewire the light, seeing as how I didn't know for sure how to get all the outlets working and the light working at the same time. That's the difference between reading the Home Depot do-it-yourself manual vs. actually being certified to complete the job. Ignorance, ambition, and a light fixture.

There's no "after" photo as of yet, but the nursery is coming along quite nicely. We now have the crib, cradle, and glider assembled. The dresser/changing table will be in later today/tomorrow and we can then start washing all those new baby cloths and getting them ready to be worn by Templin Jr. Only 3 weeks and counting!

Surely a baby is easier to take care of than a light fixture... ignorace?