I guess it is just the Murphy’s Law of old houses, or any house for that matter, that when you fix one thing, you create three more different problems. Case in point would be our back porch light. I guess you really can’t call it a porch light. It is (or should I say was) a light bulb hanging from a chain. This light bulb has been an eyesore the two years we have lived here. Why did we not get to it sooner? If you are asking me this question, you do not own an old house! 🙂 I have a short “needs to be done NOW” list and a longer list named “Eyesores”. Unfortunately, the light bulb was on the Eyesore list, so it did not get top priority. Now that we have the HVAC unit replaced, almost the entire interior of the house de-wallpapered and painted, and other misc. items updated, this week we were able to concentrate on some of the lesser priorities like back porch lights and hanging curtain rods.
Anyway, back to the problem. We thought that this would be an easy job. Just take down the old fixture and put up the new, right? HAHAHAHAHA! I am not sure of all of the specifics (I am definitely not the family electrician, Steven is and I was not asking questions!), but I was sent back to Lowes to get more supplies while Steven worked on the wiring. We were only going to put up one light because we were not sure if the wiring in the other chain was working or not. But, since I was back at Lowes, I decided to go ahead and buy the matching lantern. Since we were going to have to rewire one, we (I guess I really mean “I”, because there really was no “we” to this decision when I made it standing in the aisle at Lowes) might as well do both. As I was standing there, my cell phone rang, it was Steven, he said to go ahead and pick up the second light. I told him I was looking at it in my buggy. Great minds think alike, huh? So there is the “we” part.
When I got home, I brought the lantern in the house. My four year old must have overheard some fussing from Steven while I was gone because when I sat the light down on the table, she found it humorous. She laughed all the way out the back door to inform her daddy that mama bought another light and he was going to have to put TWO of them up! Little skunk! 😀
After it was all said and done, I have two nice lanterns lighting up my back porch tonight. In fact, I turned them on early tonight just so everyone can pass by and envy them! Happy New Year!
Click here to see the entire set.
PS: Since I don’t understand it all completely, I left all of the glorious rewiring details out. Needless to say, it will be a long time before I add another project to the “Honey-Do-List”. 😀
Perpetual Renovator 