Home Improvement from Hell
Last night I went out to the store to buy some new light bulbs. While I was there, Liz called and asked me if I could buy a new light fixture for the kitchen ceiling. The one we’ve had is none too bright, something that is really noticeable now that the sun is once again retreating to the southern hemisphere. We’ve talked about replacing it, and I guess Liz decided that today was the day.
I headed over to Menards and started looking at their ceiling mounted fixtures. It’s hard to compare light brightness from memory. (In fact, it’s pretty much physiologically impossible.) I called Liz and asked her to take a look at our current fixture and tell me what type and wattage bulb was in there, so I could be sure I was buying something beefier.
Liz put down the phone to get up and check the bulb. A minute later Fiona got on the phone and said that “mommy is stuck” cause the light fixture had come off the ceiling and Liz couldn’t get it back on the ceiling. She was standing on a chair, holding the light above her head.
I left the store and drove home; it probably took me 5 or 10 minutes at least. When I got home, Liz was still standing on a chair, holding the light above her head. The chair she was standing on wasn’t high enough to get he light fixture back up on the ceiling. If she had let go, the fixture would have been hanging by the wires.
Liz was pretty glad to see me.
I grabbed a stepladder and rescued Liz. Then I remounted the fixture and looked at the bulb, a 32W circular fluorescent.
I headed back to Menards and bought a new fixture which has two circular fluorescent bulbs, a 32W and 40W.
Then I installed it, which involved a lot of cursing about the condition of the old cloth jacketed wiring in the house, and the fact that the old fixture was mounted to a goofy half size ceiling box. After I hooked everything up and jammed the wires back in the tiny box and mounted the fixture, Liz turned on the light. We heard a small “pop” and the light did not turn on.
I got back up and unmounted the fixture and started looking again at the connections. As I was doing this, water started pouring out of one of the kitchen cabinets. I could see that it was coming from the ceiling right below the upstairs bathroom.
Liz ran upstairs and discovered that the bathroom sink drain had clogged up, and the water was leaking out of all the connections in the drain pipe.
So now we had two things that needed to be fixed pronto. I left the fixture hanging by it’s ground wire and went up to take the drain pipe apart and drain the sink into a bucket and towels. It had been slowly clogging for a while, and the smell was tremendous.
I headed out to Home Depot for supplies. I bought a new drain pipe assembly for the sink, and a full size ceiling box for the kitchen light.
With the larger box, the ceiling light worked just fine. Older wires need their space I guess. (At one point Liz asked “What’s the worst that could happen?”. My reply: “The house could burn down.”)
I fixed the sink this morning. It only took two more trips to Home Depot. The first because I bought the wrong trap last night. (I needed one that has male threads on both ends.) And the second because I over-tightened a plastic nut and broke it.
Typical.
