Electrical work on tall ladders is for the birds

First off, kudos to the hubby for scoring us a free 5-blade ceiling fan with light kit from Freecycle. Even if it was really ugly metal with even uglier glass globes, nothing a little spray paint and a trip to Homer couldn’t fix. We borrowed an 8-foot ladder in hopes of hanging said ceiling fan in the dining room where we have a vaulted ceiling. Ladder didn’t allow us to reach all the way up to the ceiling to unattach the ceiling cap and pole so we could paint those as well… but maybe we could either live with the wretched shiny brass – since the new fan will be such a pretty white – or try to paint them in place with a brush taped onto an extension pole.

However… we did not anticipate it would be such a PAIN IN THE ASS to connect the wiring 10 feet in the air, using one hand to hold up the very heavy fan motor and the other to twist and tape wires together… and then shove the whole mess up into the pole or down into the fan body, and then use a bolt and cotter pin to hang the motor assembly from the pre-existing pole. No, we didn’t think it would be that difficult at all. Well, Murphy sure had a field day with us.

On the upside, we did manage to hang a very pretty hand-me-down light fixture from my sister-in-law over the stairwell, and it looks so very lovely. And very bright. Now the wall leading up the stairs – not to mention the carpet and ancient wall paint – looks very very bland. We need some good statement art to justify such a bright and cheerful light.

Them’s designer blown-glass globes, I’ll have you know

On the downside, the dining room looks even more like a disaster area than it did when we started, and we have no ceiling fan for the moment, just a pole of about 8 feet sticking down with raw wires coming out. I guess that isn’t a problem unless we inadvertently turn on the switch that controls the fan, in which case it shouldn’t be a problem unless the raw wires touch each other. In which case, ka-boom! And then we won’t have to worry about wiring the ceiling fan!