Highest Accomplishment

I've been in my house right at one full year and over the past 365 days I have made a lot of improvements. For some of these improvements I was fairly confident when I started. For others I was weary but still knew deep down I could do it. A few weeks ago, for the first time, I attempted a project and wasn't sure if I would be successful.

I bought new ceiling fans for my bedroom and my roommate's bedroom before I even signed the closing papers on my house. The ceiling fan in Katie's room looked like something out of a horror movie and needed to be replaced immediately. The ceiling fan in my bedroom was fairly new, but it wasn't exactly my style and it gave off barely any light.

Thanks to the help of friends Jessi and Jarrod, the ceiling fan in my roommate's room was replaced within the first week of living in the house. However, we didn't have time to get to my fan and a few months later Jessi and Jarrod moved away, so here we were, one year after move-in day and the new ceiling fan was still sitting in the garage.

I finally worked up the courage to try and make the installation by myself and moved the box from the garage to my bedroom. I figured that it would still be a few weeks if not months before I needed the fan and I rarely used the light because it was so worthless so if the project went awry, then I had plenty of time to put in a frantic call to a friend or to call a handy man before I was in desperate need of my new fan. 

First step was taking down my existing ceiling fan.  

To my surprise, I was able to uninstall it without too much of a hassle. 

Now it was time to assemble the new fan. All was going well until I once again stripped the screws that were in the motor. How does this happen to me? I started having flashbacks to the last time this happened and knew it was best if I just stopped and asked for help. See, I am learning.   

This time it wasn't Michael, but Joey who came to the rescue. I just wanted to spread the "helping Dani" duties out evenly among the Alethia Church pastors. Plus, I was headed to the Clark's house for my small group later that week anyway. So I just went a little early, took the fan motor, and let Joey work his magic. I watched with a look of defeat as it took Joey all of 10 seconds to remove the screws. 

With the screws removed I could continue to assemble the fan and then mount it on the ceiling. The mount that came with the new fan wasn't working too well so I uninstalled it and then reinstalled the old mount. Why did I not do that in the first place? 

Anyway, after everything was in place it was time to start on the wiring. I did my best to match wires safely and properly then made sure the fan was safely secured to the ceiling. To my amazement, when I restored the power and flipped the switch, the light worked! I was giddy - like a 12 year old with a crush on the high school quarterback. 

When I went to test the fan, my giggles quickly faded - no such luck. I was so close yet so far. I had a feeling the wiring would take a little trial and error but at least the light was working. After a few failed attempts at the fan, I gave up and decided to save that battle for another weekend. However, the last thing I wanted was for another year to go by and this fan still not be in working order, so I left the ladder in my room as a reminder to get this project finished. I would not move the ladder until I had a working fan.

The ladder sat in my room for two weeks solid. Finally I was ready to go a second round with the wiring. After about 45 minutes and some electrical tape, I had a working light and fan. This was my proudest moment as a homeowner. 

This was probably my least favorite of my projects so far.  I think ceiling fans have now made it on my This I Refuse to do After Marriage list. Now I just need to find a husband, which may be easier than installing another fan. 

However, even through all of my complaining, the fact that I now know I can do this has opened my imagination a bit. The lighting fixtures in my house are terrible, especially the ones in the kitchen and living room. Now that I know replacing them is within my realm of possibility, I'm even more motivated to find their replacements and get to work.