Accomplished!

I love the feeling when I accomplish something. Whether big or small, it's a great feeling to get something done, and to do it well. Today was one of those "we did it" days.

Blain and I have been talking about wanting a ceiling fan in our bedroom ever since we've moved into our house over a year ago. We had no light in the ceiling at all; just a lamp plugged into an outlet that was hooked up to the light switch. Then, a couple of weeks ago, Blain bought a ceiling fan (with a light) for super cheap at a local hardware store. To be honest, I was a little upset because we really didn't have anywhere to put it. Every night after he bought the thing we layed in bed and brainstormed ways we could wire it so that it could work in our bedroom. Then one night, Blain figured it out: just add another wire to the switch, run the wire up through the wall and into the attic, run it across the attic to the center of our ceiling, drill a hole in the ceiling, and mount the fan/light. Pretty simple, right?? Well, that's what we thought.

So, with our TV satellite not working, and pretty yucky weather predicted for the day, it was off to Lowes we went for our "little" home improvement project. The guy at Lowes who sold us the wire and mounting box gave us a brief low-down of what we needed to do and assured us our idea would work; we were giddy and excited as we left the store. A half-hour later, with Blain sweating in the attic and me still not being able to see the wire he was feeding down, we weren't quite as excited, nor giddy. However, another half-hour later, the wire was pulled through, the hole cut in the ceiling, and the mounting box in place. Woo hoo! The rest we thought would be pretty easy, but also turned out needing a lot of patience, and more time that we thought. We've already installed two ceiling fans in our home, so we thought it would be a simple routine. But, whoever wrote the instructions for this one was...well... missing a few screws, and it took some brainpower to figure it all out. We finally got all the parts together, the fan hung, and the light bulbs screwed in. Whew!

Then it was time for the big test. Did it work??? I was so nervous -- would the house blow up? Would nothing turn on? Would we overload the switch? What did we know about electricity anyway? On went the circuit breaker, and on went the light/fan!! Yeah!!! But wait... when I flipped the switch on the wall, nothing happened; the light/fan just stayed on. Ooops. I took the walkie-talkie downstairs to the circuit box, and Blain stayed upstairs to figure out the switch. About ten walkie-talkie calls and circuit breaker on/offs later, the switch was up and working. Another triumph!

Now we have a working ceiling fan and light in our bedroom. And I can guarantee you that every time we look at that, we will both feel a little twinge of pride, a little sense of accomplishment, and have a little smile on our face knowing that is the product of our work (well, mostly Blain's work, but I like to take a little credit). It will be something we get to brag about for at least a little while, and something more for us to add to our "home improvement resume". The only question now is: what's next? :)