Extreme Makeover Part 3: Let There Be Light

Our new house was apparently either owned by vampires or lamp enthusiasts because there is pretty much no lighting in the house.

When we moved in I thought, simple fix, we’ll just replace the fans with fan-lights.

This was a no-go.

Stephen (in his slightly autistic self) can’t stand fan lights because if you have the fan and the light on at the same time, it flashes on the ceiling.

Stephen instead decided that we should put in recessed lighting.

So being a very supportive wife, I encouraged this endeavor with encouraging statements such as:

You’re going to get electrocuted.

You don’t know anything about putting in lighting.

The ceiling will look like Swiss cheese.

You’ll set the house on fire.

You’ll put in too many lights.

You won’t put in enough lights.

So finally the day came one Saturday morning and we started by marking where the lights would go.

We soon discovered that measuring is really not a strength for either of us, but a little more for me.

This unfortunately wasn’t realized until the ceiling was covered in pencil marks.



We also got ahead of ourselves and didn’t cover the furniture until we were about half way done.

We are not very good with going “step 1, step 2, step 3…etc”.

We like to be more creative with a step 3 here and and step 1 there and maybe throw in a step 8 in.

For example, Stephen would start cutting the hole and then put his protective glasses on.



Or he would be about to cut the hole and then remember to check for studs.

I turned out to be quite skilled in fishing for wires, the only fishing I am good at.

Stephen, well he was amazing.

He put in 7 lights, two track lights, a fan and dimmable switches.

Before: (or I guess, during)



After:



I will never doubt him again, at least until the next project.

(Oh, and this was just the living room, we haven’t even gotten to the rest of the house yet!)