Something’s A Little Off: a house log

If this post were a fable, its moral would be – when something in your home simply does not feel quite right, do something about it. Or wait for it to randomly die on its own accord and take it as a sign. We will use this light hanging in our living room as our story’s lead character.

You may remember that there is consistently been something “off” about it – it is the only permanent fixture in that large room, and it is placed awkwardly in a corner (which is why Sherry tried to distract us from the annoying placement by adding a bit of color to the glass shade to cheer things up while I was out for a run).

But soon sufficient we both agreed that was not the solution. The blue tint was pleasant and soft in “real life,” but whenever we snapped photos of that side of the room (which is frequently thanks to this ol’ journal), it would cast an odd blue tint over that half of the room. I affectionately called it our alien invasion corner. So I eventually nagged convinced Sherry to wipe off the paint, which is why many of you noticed that it was naked again. Three cheers for reversible projects.

Returning it to its natural state was a big assist, and we even talked about spray painting the chain oil-rubbed bronze (to match the curtain rods that we will eventually bring in and Karl the sectional’s legs) but we consistently ultimately admitted that it was not our style. In other words, we’d eventually like to replace it with a pleasant drum pendant or perhaps even recessed lights that we will get installed throughout the room. So we wondered how much effort and time it was worth to keep attempting to fairly up something that we eventually hoped to replace or remove.

Then the light fairy took care of everything for us. Because the light stopped working. I am not even kidding. It simply up and died about seven days after Sherry’s big wipe-down. At first it flickered a bit. Then it would not turn on at all. We futzed with it a few times (changing the bulb, etc) but had no luck – it had given up on us. Perhaps it could hear us complaining about how oddly it was placed (you can see simply how randomly it was plopped into the ceiling in this house tour video that Sherry shared a few weeks back) and simply lost the will to live. Poor guy.

We certainly were not devastated by the premature death but it was kind of a surprise. How dare it die (the nerve!) before we had a chance to nix it on our own terms. But since fixing the wiring would not fix the whole off-center placement issue (it is neither centered in front of the window nor between the ceiling beams), or the fact that it simply was not a light that we’d pick for ourselves (and eventually hoped to replace) we chose to call off any further resuscitation efforts and let the darn light rest in peace.

As I began to remove the light once and for all, my autopsy uncovered the cause of death. It appears that a wire had torn or became disconnected right near the base. Which is something I likely could have fixed, but by this point we were set on removing it entirely. Smell ya later good for nothing not centered old broken brass lamp in the corner of the room.

We took the fast route in terms of concealing the junction box and installed a white plastic ceiling cap over a metal junction box cover to the tune of $2 (50 cents for the metal cover and a buck fifty for the white cap to assist it blend in). We will get the whole junction box took out, or more likely shifted a bit to a more centered location in front of the window by an electrician at a later date).

Not the prettiest thing ever, but it is certainly less intrusive and noticeable than the oddly-placed, non-functioning, outdated fixture that preceded it.

The best part is that we now get an unobstructed view out the window. No more gazing at the backyard and being distracted by thoughts of “I truly wish I could yank that light two feet to the right so it made sense in front of the window instead of dangling over the left corner of the view.” Seriously, it takes a lot of energy to lament bad lighting placement. But now our ol’ pendant light is in a better place. Literally. All light fixtures go to heaven, right? Either that or the Habitat For Humanity ReStore (which is in fact where we sent it).

It does make that corner a bit dark at night, obviously. But that will be remedied once our this-thing-is-taking-forever console table is at last completed and we have a table lamp on that side of the sectional. And someday we will likely get an electrician to wire some new lights in all the right places (perhaps some recessed ones, perhaps a crisp hanging pendant that is centered in front of the window, etc).

R.I.P. Weird Light. You will be missed. Okay, not truly. It simply sounded like the polite thing to say.