August 25, 2014

Hail to the Do-It-Your-Selfers (and their helpers)

If Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man then Midwest is the Best, because there you can find a whole slew of helpful souls ready to answer any question imaginable and lend a helping hand to even the most clueless of do-it-your-selfers, me included.

I've known that for some time now, but the fact was reaffirmed  just the other day when I decided to replace the modern electrical wall sconce in the hallway with a beautiful antique fixture given to me by my sister some time ago.

Naturally the wiring on the relic was past the point of reliability and practically fell to pieces when I tugged at it to remove it from the brass fixture base.  No, this wouldn't do at all, I reasoned.  So it was off I went, fixture in hand, to visit one of my favorite hardware helpers, Nick, who, upon seeing the aged light that I was holding said, "Wow, that's a cool fixture!" It didn't take him long to locate just the wiring that I needed,and he lopped off a few feet and sent me on my way.

Everything I know about electrical wiring comes from trial and error experience.  But I do know a few facts:  neutral to neutral and hot to hot.  I come from a long line of do-it-yourselfers dating back to my grandmother who rarely shied from a challenge to my own father who was responsible once for "fixing" an electric alarm clock so that it ran backwards when plugged in a certain way.  I guess that must have been a polarity problem or something.

First things first, I set about attaching the new wire to my old light.  Then, after disabling the power to the hallway, I set about removing the existing light.  It wasn't long before I was gazing at a gaping hole in the wall and several wires pointing pointing accusatorilly my way.  What was I thinking, I asked myself.  I must have had a moment of utter madness thinking I could successfully mess with this wiring project all by myself. 

But needless to say, I tread fearlessly onward. 

And so I twisted and tucked and poked and tightened.  And then came the moment of truth, (or dare.)  I ran downstairs,  flicked the breaker switch back on, ran back up two flights of stairs and cautiously approached the light switch that would either shed a great light on the subject or send me back to the drawing board (and probably a phone call to a real electrician).  Hopefully, I secretly thought, there would be no sparks or fireworks involved.

Voile, there was light when the switch was flipped.  My world lit up both figuratively as well as literally.  For a second that is.  And then it went dark.  The entire house was thrown into a power outage and my heart sank like the setting sun.  I figured I'd really done it this time and I flicked the power off in the blink of an eye and thought about who to call in the dire situation.  

It was then that I realized that outside an approaching electrical storm had encroached while I'd been enthralled with my little project and had actually cut the power to the entire town.  And when seconds later the lights came back on, I could have danced for joy.  I flicked my new light on and off, and on again, reveling in the power that I had at my fingertips. 

I had really done it;  and to think that I had there for a moment feelings of self doubt.  Never be afraid to try, that's my motto.  What's the worst that can happen to you - a few seconds of dark will be overshadowed by a great light!!