Let there be light

We took a part of the weekend to do a little work around the house.

While a lot of this stuff is, for me and my skill level, some monumental shit, it’s nothing compared to the greater, more salient jobs I hope to complete on this house. I can change all of the fucking light fixtures I want, but those are small beans jobs. Try hanging a door, or knocking out a floor. I know people who have done massive, massive fucking jobs on their cribs. Frank for one, but Vince also immediately comes to mind by not only building a big-ass garage with some extra hands, but the complete remodel of his kitchen. He did everything — knocked out part of the kitchen wall, put in all new countertops, drawers, cupboards, rewired the whole deal, added outlets and probably a bunch of other shit I’m forgetting. But he does all of that himself, and that is something I truly admire because a.) I can’t do it, and b.) I’m trying to aspire to do it.

So, when we moved in, the kitchen light setup here was kind of weird. There was black track lighting laid out around a center, ceiling-mounted light that had a bunch of exposed elements to it. It looked like shit. I don’t have a very good “before” picture, but this is what it looked like when Kerry and I replaced the fixture.

We decided a while ago that the track lighting was kind of ugly,

but it was useful because we there was no light above the stove. While Kerry was gone, I ripped that shit out, went to Home Depot and bought a self-contained Halogen lamp thing that installs under the cabinet and above the stove. The whole thing ended up looking like this, which is much better.

Back when Kerry first bought the house, one of the first purchases was a new porch light. That was about four months ago. With this newly inspired acumen in entry-level electrical work, I decided to replace that also. I popped off the old one

And then installed the housing for the new lamp. I actually had to drill some holes into the siding to get this mounting bracket up.

Again, I know this is really remedial shit to some people, but I was fucking giddy with myself. The end product looks like this.

While considerably small in scope, I was kind of happy with the work we accomplished. We have a lot more to go, but that’s more of a cosmetic nature, and not so much a need-based situation. We need to paint inside, I’d like to replace the screen door (it’s white aluminum and looks kind of lame, we have some furniture and spacing issues to settle, one wall in our living room needs a major art space renovation. I’ll keep you posted.