For the five years we’ve lived here, several of the light switches haven’t worked. In our daughter’s room, for example, we had to tie a long strip of tulle to the chain on her ceiling fan so she could turn her light on and off. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.
When we decided to embark on fairly major room makeovers for each of our children — including a loft bed for one and bunks for the other — we knew her ceiling fan had to go. Elevated bed + spinning blades + curious child was just a recipe for decapitation.
Before we sold our condo in Bedford, my husband spruced it up by switching out all of the classic ‘flicky’ light switches with the big, flat, modern ones I call palm-mashers. (I think they might be called decorator switches, but that’s not a very clear description.) That was the extent of his electrical knowledge, so swapping out a light fixture sounded daunting.
We picked out the Canarm Daya flushmount light from Kent Building Supplies because our daughter had her heart set on a sparkly “chanda-wee-ah.” It had a pretty chrome base and LOTS of dangly crystals, so she proudly showed off the box to everyone she could.
When the big installation day arrived, I ducked in and out of the room nervously to make sure my dear husband wasn’t going to electrocute himself while our children watched …
Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …
Thanks to Kent Building Supplies for providing us with the Canarm Daya flushmount light so we could tackle this project. As always, all opinions and electrical mishaps are my own.