Archive for the ‘diy’ Category

This past Sunday Anna and I decided we were going to lounge all day, recouping after our three day trip to Taos. On the way home from church though, we decided to stop at Home Depot, and get a new light for our front porch. The bulb blew out a *long* time ago, and I decided that we should take the eco-plunge and get a CFL rather than another incandescent that would burn out quickly. The cover had previously shattered on the light fixture, so while we were at Home Depot we decided to get a new light fixture.
Of course the one porch light fixture turned into a porch light fixture, a bedroom light fixture, an LED track light fixture, and a few CFLs.

So I generally get anxious doing electrical work around the house, and Sunday was no exception. I started with the porch, and found the correct breaker and flipped it off. I removed the old fixture, mounted the new fixture, and waged epic battles against wasps. After an hour and a half or so it was finished, and I was looking at a pretty new light fixture with an orange CFL especially for the Halloween kiddies.

After that was completed, and wasps were vanquished, I obviously couldn’t sit down. Instead, I removed our ugly 80′s track light from the kitchen, switched off a different breaker, and put this puppy up.

We’re so eco now – CFL out front with a fancy motion detector light fixture, and an LED track light in our kitchen. While I’m not super excited about CO2 reduction (ask me sometime to explain the difference between convection, and the greenhouse effect, and why the “greenhouse effect” isn’t something that technically happens in our atmosphere), I AM excited about responsible stewardship. Using an LED that uses 1 watt of power instead of a light bulb using 60 watts is a no brainer to me.

To finish the above installation, I’ll just need to paint around the last track’s power supply, which you can see was square.

Last night when I got home from work Anna asked me to put in the third and final fixture we purchased Sunday.
Again, I flipped some switches in the breaker box, removed the old 80′s fixture, and put up a much nicer, halogen setup. It puts out quite a bit of light, and obviously looks a lot better than our outdated light fixture.

That’s it – three small DIY projects in two days. I feel so productive, and even better, I didn’t die.

I meant to write about music today – and post some recordings of some ideas I’ve been working on with improvisational piano, then I thought I’d write about why registering as an Independent is dumb (since it’s election day and all) – and instead I posted pics and described boring house projects.
Oh well – I still rock.