Friday, June 11, 2010

Light Fixture Fiasco

Some people might tell you that paint is the easiest way to transform a room. Next runner up would be the light fixture...at least in my book. So...I purchased a lovely new light fixture for the top of our stairs/hallway. It's fun. It's different. And it goes really well with our new hall runner.

Well...after having the huge box sit in the living room for a couple weeks, I decided it was time to get the sucker up! Easier said than done my friends. Who knew?! We pulled out the step ladder and tools and down came the old light fixture. Here's a shot of the old fixture.














Of course...because nothing is easy...the new fixture came with almost nonexistent instructions. After several hours, and numerous mishaps that involved putting the fixture up, then having to take it down to connect parts, etc...we were 90% there. Mind you at this point our arms resembled jelly from holding the darn thing above our heads for hours. (You'd think I'd be sore after all this arm work, but sadly...not at all. Bummer!)

Anyhow...90% there and...and you guessed it...failure! The whole socket thing fell out of the ceiling...followed by insulation which just continued to pour out of the hole. Sigh. Now we're left with a fixture that's 90% put together, but too heavy to connect to the ceiling in it's current state and will require dismantling in order to be reassembled in it's new home, a huge hole in the ceiling, and an electrical box (is that what it's called?) that won't stay in the ceiling.

Here's a couple shots of the fixture. Much better in person!!



2 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear about your troubles. I'm not sure I got all the details right, but so are you saying that the electrical box (and that is a semi-proper term for it BTW) is not attached to anything?

    Do you have a plan? Are you going to call a professional electrician?

    They make a bracket that you can use to add some support for these electrical boxes, and there are some especially designed for retro fits.

    Basically it's a piece of metal that you'll put in the ceiling above the hole for the bracket box, and it attached to the rafters on either side of the hole. Then the electrical box hangs from that bracket.

    Don't feel too bad. There's always some little thing that goes wrong.

    Good luck. Let me know if you have any questions.

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  2. I forgot. I was going to post you a couple links that may help.

    Here's some picture of the brackets I'm talking about so you can know what to look for:

    http://www.nextag.com/ceiling-fan-brace/products-html

    here's another internet article of one guy putting one in

    http://www.oneprojectcloser.com/install-a-ceiling-fan-mount-bracket-electric-box/

    I've installed a bunch of these in my house, and my Dad I'm sure has done a ton of them.

    Good luck.

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