You Lumen Up My Life!
Posted on September 27, 2013 by
Across the construction worksite I could hear the story of Paul (from the Bible) playing on a CD telling about Saul’s blindness. That’s what the siding crew was listening to one day. This great crew was often heard asking questions about creation, politics, pondering on people from the Bible, and discussing morals. They were fun and polite and did everything we asked and more. This week they finished siding the house and made gutters on site.
From sheet metal to a gutter, this crimping machine was cool!
This is the roadside of the house.
ProSiding Crew who put up the HardiePlank
It was this ProSiding crew that Jack turned to for help in helping him overcome his fear of heights. One of the (many) things that Jack has been dreading was hanging the 2 ceiling fans and the chandelier in the Great room, 34 feet up. Yes, this is my pilot husband, who has the fear of heights. So Monday, when the crew was nearly through with the siding and guttering Charlie’s siding crew agreed to put scaffolding in the great room to mount our ceiling fans and chandelier. Jack who has been wiring, wiring, and wiring built special wooden boxes to mount the ceiling fans and the chandelier on the timbers.
Ferguson Electric scrambled to get all of the parts we need it so this group could do the work while they were still on site. Kudos to Sarah Burns at Fergusons along with John, Deborah, Darryl and Tim. Their kindness and customer service are superb. However, we still were left with the wrong bulbs and fan blades and could not accomplish this awesome task on Wednesday. So, Thursday we skipped choir practice in favor of assembling our second choice of fans and trying the new bulbs. Nope- bulbs didn’t’ work. We drove off to Lowes in a huff (I might add!)
That brings me to the title of this blog. Have you shopped for lighting lately? For goodness sakes, since when did the alternatives in light bulb shopping become so complex? You can no longer purchase a 100-watt incandescent bulb. And energy saving policies require so much labeling in a different measurement scale…not watts and amps. Instead, there are so many new types of bulbs that it takes an Associate’s degree to understand the choices. For example, 13 lumens= 60 watts and 23 lumens = 100 watts. Kindly refer to this easy reference chart!
I needed 4 GU24 LED or CFL dimmable bulbs that to fit eache ceiling fan. Since the room is large, we wanted at least the strength of a 100-watt bulb. Each fan takes 2 bulbs. So how fast was the train traveling? Just kidding, keep reading!
The section in the home improvement store is huge now! Once I purchased these bulbs and got them home for the fan assembly, they were still wrong and late Thursday we had to make another Lowes run. Hopefully we have the correct ones for this work starts first thing Friday morning. Oops, this just in, Charlie says let’s wait until Monday. I agreed in favor of double checking those bulbs tomorrow.
So whether it is Saul or Paul, seeing the light, or my chandelier bringing a warm glow to Bedford Landings, I hope to sing the song soon…You Lumen up my Life! And you know, it may be the bulbs, it may be daylight or it may be heaven sent when this all comes together!
I would like to say that clears it all up but my electrician (hubby, Jack) probably won't rewire and who knew! We may now have to take all these dimmers back!
So now we all need to go to Lightbulb School. See why America cringes when anyone mentions "Let's go metric! " What did Saul say about patience, cuz this IS a test!
I feel your pain, we started to cover some of this in my electrical class last night, I am so confused.
Well.......what is that joke ........Something like....."How many men does it take to screw in a light bulb?" Somehow it just doesn't seem so funny anymore, does it?!?!?!?!? And God created light in just one day!!!!!! Leave it to man to mess that up!!!! :)
Even if we sat by candle light, we in Raleigh are so proud of your adventure and watching this wonderful home/b&b go up. Just let me know if I should bring my flashlight. HA HA
I see your dilemma. Since lamps/bulbs are my profession, please allow me to point out a couple of things that Lowe's may fail to mention: An LED GU24 bulb is not yet available from any vendor that I am aware of. The CFL 23-watt GU24 is available, but is NOT dimmable. I have not seen a dimmable GU24 bulb anywhere. There are some dimmable CFLs available, but they have to specifically say "Dimmable" on the package, and you have to buy Lutron brand dimmer switches for them to work properly. A suggestion: have your electrician rewire the fixtures with standard A19 sockets. Then install SWITCH brand LED 100-watt equivalent LED bulbs, which have a LIFETIME warranty. Then, your hubby would never need to face his fear of heights (a-hem! I'm just as afraid of heights, and I fly, too!) again.