Let there be Light

As always, whenever I plan a small project for around the house that should be very straightforward, it turns into a huge ordeal. Like when we got our new stove and hood. Sears wanted an arm and a leg to install the new hood so Stephen said he would do it himself. When we took off the old one, the duct work fell down out of the exhaust chimney and the hood did not even line up with the exhaust so two trips to the hardware store and half a day later, it was finally installed. Or when our faucet exploded last year a couple of days before Christmas, it should have been a piece of cake to install a new one but the air pipe (I forget the technical name for it) was in the way and Stephen had to buy a 24" long screwdriver to reach the screws. That installation took 4 hours and two trips to the hardware store too.

The same thing has happened again. The lighting in our family room is terrible. There is one pot light and it shines down at such an angle that it burns in my eyes and gives me migraines so we NEVER turn that light on. I have a lamp in the room but it does not give off enough light for the whole room. I am always looking for just the right light. So I saw this track system and I thought it would be perfect because it is halogen lights which give off perfect white light, and the shades are blue so they will go with all of the blue glass accessories in the house. It looked easy enough to install and for $100 - what a bargain.

So today Stephen started poking around the old pot light and besides the fact that the opening is HUGE, there is no nearby junction box to attach the new lighting system too. And there is a heating duct running alongside the opening (in the ceiling) so no way to properly secure a new junction box right there. So, he will have to cut ANOTHER hole in the ceiling to install this new light. Then we will have to repair the old hole, tape, putty and texturize THEN paint the ceiling. OMG, what an ordeal to install a relatively cheap light.

But, once it is in it will look great and I am looking forward to having some real light in that room. Plus it will match nicely with the lamp I bought last year (for half price!).

Anyway, Stephen is at Home Depot now (after going to Ace earlier today) to get the drywall stuff he'll need to patch the ceiling. Already two trips to the hardware store and he hasn't even started yet the installation yet. This one might set a record for number of trips to the store.