Let There be Light!! - Part II
Thankfully the weather held today, and I was able to finally get to work on the various outdoor lighting projects.
One of the main things I wanted to do was to put up some Christmas lights around the horses' paddocks. The paddocks are made from steel corral-panels, so there's no easy way to attach the light-strings to them. In this case, I had to resort to "The Handyman's Secret Weapon" - Duct-Tape!! (Red-Green would be proud!) Admittedly, it doesn't look great in the daylight, but it's very pretty at night when the the lights all come on. The project took longer than I had expected (what else is new?) as strong-winds don't make things easy when dealing with sticky tape, and I also had to keep curious horses from trying to see if the lights were edible! This would have probably been easier yesterday when it was a bit warmer as well, but the job is done. :)
The next thing was to get the new lights set up in the garage. I had originally planned to just buy a pre-made "string" of light-sockets, which would have certainly been the easier way to go. The price however, made me rethink that idea! Over $80.00 for a string of five sockets, and that's before tax!! That's just nuts, so I bought three electrical boxes, and three sockets for under $10 for the lot (I aleady have the wire and other materials.) It was close to 3pm by the time I started, and I figured I would start in the back of the garage and work my way forward towards the main doors, where there would be more light.
These projects always seem to take longer than I expect them to. It's not really the actual wiring that takes the time, it's all the prep-work that has to be done first, and then it's up-and-down the ladder, switching out bits, driving screws, hammering nails, etc. I think the longest part isn't hooking up the wire to the sockets, it's running the wire along the ceiling and having to nail the wire-staples in place that takes the most time. Big fingers and small nails can be an awkward, if not painful, situation. In any case, it took close to three hours to get everything hooked up. In the end, I was forced to use a flashlight to make the final electrical connections as the sun had gotten tired of waiting for me and had already set. It was all good though; When the Moment of Truth arrived and I flipped the switch, there was so sparking or the snapping of circuit-breakers, just the glow of electric light filling the once dark and shadowy areas of the garage! Yaaayy!!
i should also mention that the project would have been a lot faster and easier if I didn't have to deal with the filth in the garage. Trixstir and the kidling had done a good job of clearing all the crud from the floor, but they couldn't do much about the ceiling and rafters where I was working today. When I peeled off a rotten section of gyprock, I saw what I at first thought to be fat mice or rat turds. Turns out they were hibernating house-flies!!! Uggghhh!!! Gross!!!! I didn't know that they did that; I had always assumed the eggs lay dormant over the winter, I didn't realize that the flies themselves hibernated. In any case, those little huggers won't be waking up again...
My feet and legs ache from standing on the ladder for such a long time, but it's well worth it to finally have proper lighting out in the garage. Back in the house, I helped Mom finish off the painting in the kitchen, and turned my attention to the dead ceiling-fan there. It's a nice-looking white-&-brass fan, and I didn't want to just junk it. On a whim, I tried probing around the light-sockes with my current-detector, and was rewarded with a beeping tone. So, there actually was power getting to it. This suggested that if power was getting to the fan, perhaps the problem was that it couldn't get back out. After shutting off the appropriate circuit-breaker, I carefully removed the fan from its mount. Sure enough, there was the problem; The neutral return wire had come loose! It was a simple matter of reconnecting the loose wire and securing the fan back onto its mount, and it worked just fine again! It makes a huge difference having that ceiling-fan working! It has three lights, so it really brightens up the kitchen and running the fan in reverse really does keep the room's temperature more even, as well as helping reduce the condensation on the window-panes.
I stayed up past 1am, waiting for Trixstir to get home from the bowling alley. Tonight was the first Christmas Party of the season, and the guests were there until midnight! They paid very well though, and if all of the Christmas parties do so well, it shall be a very Merry Christmas indeed! The only downside is that Trixstir has to open the alley again at 10am for the Saturday Morning Kid's Bowling. This will all be a lot easier next year once we're fully moved in and I can take over the late nights, but it's going to be a bit rough this year. The profits make it a littler easier to cope with though! :)