Monday, June 9, 2008

Yes, we can!

Can you hear it? That's the sound of me. Rockin'. Oh, yeah baby, cause I do. Rock.

So, the electrician who installed my fans wanted a small fortune to install the light fixtures. I was willing to pay him what I consider a king's ransom to put up the fans because they needed to have those reinforcement thingies to hold the weight. The possibility of a 30-pound fan falling on me while I'm in bed asleep was not an idea I was thrilled with. So I was more than willing to dig deep to pay a professional. But when my Pops got a look at what they wanted to charge to put in 4 light fixtures, he said, "Nah. We can do that ourselves." We can? Cool.

And it turns out that not just we can do it, I can do it. I watched Dad do the first one, then I did the other 3 myself. With appropriate adult supervision. I stripped wires. I twisted things. I grounded things. I used those little turny/locky things for the wires. I didn't flinch when Dad yelled "White to white!!" Yeah, yeah, yeah. It only took us about 3 hours. It would have been shorter if I hadn't stopped to admire my handiwork each time. And to do the Boo-Yah! dance each time. You just can't rush good choreography.

The only one left to do is the one in the stairwell. Which will require a big ladder. I think it's about 8 feet. No problem. Because, as it turns out, I'm a bit of a daredevil. I had Mom & Dad over to thank them for helping out with the installations last week. And a few more people over for dessert. Where my Mom proceeds to work the crowd with stories about my toddler years, where, evidently, I enjoyed climbing to the top of 6-foot chain link fences and on top of refrigerators. So, proportionally speaking, considering that I've grown a bit since I was a squid scaling tall furniture in a single bound, an 8-foot ladder should be a piece of cake. And what was the other reason? Hmm. . . Oh, yeah! I rock!

4 comments:

Desiree' said...

You do rock. There is no way that I would be able to do that myself. Electricity scares me. If you don't know what you are doing, poof! House up in smoke. So, I just say no.

FirePhrase said...

My Dad is a good teacher. I'd bet if you found a good teacher, you could do it too. Cause, hey, you rock too. This is very cut & dry work. Nothing too fancy. Electricity can definitely be scary, and I'm not going to try to re-wire my house or anything ballsy. But I do feel like this is one life skill I've got in my back pocket now. Thanks, Dad!

WashingtonGardener said...

Great job on the DIY!
Scaling 6 ft chain link fences? Yet ANOTHER reason not to have kids - there is enough to worry about saftey-wise on the ground -- yeesh!

FirePhrase said...

What can I tell ya? I was a daredevil in Buster Browns. Obviously it was fairly traumatic for my Moms. Since she brings it up, well, let's just say a long time later.

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