The other day I flipped on the lights in our kitchen and noticed one of the two pendants over the table was out.
No biggie, right? The previous owners had thoughtfully left us a spare bulb (since they take tiny special ones) so I popped it in there and voi… nothing. Darn. Apparently my fix wouldn’t be that easy.
I’m no electrician, but I figured-slash-hoped I could diagnose and solve the problem without having to call in help and/or buy a new light. Not that we have any special attachment to these fixtures in particular. In fact, we’ll probably replace them for one larger light fixture over the island that we plan to add when we start overhauling the kitchen. But since we aren’t quite ready to go down that road (which always seems to snowball into chaos if you’re not ready for it), I had my sights set on saving this fella first. So off went the power to the whole house (call me Captain Better Safe Than Sorry) and down came the light.
I tried tightening the wire caps in the ceiling. Maybe something had come loose? No luck.
I tried swapping bulbs with the working light. Maybe my spare bulb was a dud? Nope. Not it.
I tried removing it and reattaching it entirely, just because I was running out of ideas. Still nothing.
At this point Sherry was batting her eyelashes and sweetly requesting that I “leave it alone for now” (read: give up) because she could tell that I was losing patience with all of my light-related failures. And also because I accidentally dropped a screwdriver on my face (and might have cursed pretty loudly) during my latest attempt. Go me.
Speaking of short fuses, I even tried cutting the now-frayed wire ends off of the fixture and exposing some new fresh wire to see if that would help. All I ended up with was shorter wires. But still no illumination. Sigh.
Thanks for sticking with me through this riveting play by play by the way. At this point I’m ready to take Sherry’s advice and admit defeat.
My last task is just to put the darn thing back together so no wires are left exposed while we go light shopping. That’s when I noticed something on the bottom of the light. The white wire going into the light socket had somehow become unattached. I hadn’t noticed it before, so my guess is that maybe it was loose to start with, and all of my recent manhandling had knocked it completely out. So after a bit more manhandling (and basically disassembling the socket completely) I was able to get the white wire secured back into place:
And that, my friends, is how I showed this light who’s boss.
Don’t mind the wonky shade, I straightened that out after snapping this photo (well, after Sherry pointed out that it looked crooked).
Now I realize the specifics of this electrical solution smackdown hardly apply to everyone who ever has a light out, but it does go to show you that sometimes a little persistence (and a screwdriver dropped on your face) can solve a problem if you stick with it. Kinda like when we managed to fix the pocket door in the last house by flailing around aimlessly and trying a few different things. Maybe we’ll put the money that we saved on buying an interim replacement fixture towards a slightly more expensive permanent fixture someday when we actually dive headfirst into the whole kitchen redo. Call it a celebratory splurge. In case you’re wondering, Sherry has her eye on this one in white. Although knowing us we’ll be too cheap to pull the trigger and it’ll sell out, forcing us to DIY something or hit up a local lighting outlet in search of something else that lights our fire. And that my friends, is my second post of the day that ends with a cringeworthy pun. You’re welcome.
Es says
Great job! The last time I switched out a light fixture, it took me the whole day, and I “ugly-cried” almost twice.
Ana Silva says
You are on a roll!
Amy L. says
John–have we not learned our lesson from the ceramic pooch? Dropping tools on faces is to be avoided. :P
YoungHouseLove says
Seriously.
xo,
s
kim says
I’d actually take those pendants off your hands and add a different glass (or not glass) shade, then hang them over my bar! I think they are very nice! But I LURVE the capiz too…so you!
Waiting so impatiently for you to tackle the kitchen. We just started ours….revamping the cabs and getting ready to paint them….new counters, backsplash, etc…I want to see how you guys are doing yours at the same time! I am weird like that. However, as slow as we are going, you’ll be starting on yours before we ever finish!
Christy says
Maybe they’ll put the light you want from W. E. on sale by the time you’re hoping to buy!
YoungHouseLove says
How did you know I make silent sale wishes all the time? Haha.
xo,
s
Blanca A. says
west side!! did you teach clara in honor of cinco de mayo? lol, you guys crack me up! i would have never noticed that unless you guys pointed it out :D
[email protected] says
Love the fixtures that you chose! Are you guys getting any closer to the kitchen remodel? I find that when I take on a few small projects in a particular room I get really inspired to go bigger!
YoungHouseLove says
We can’t wait to tackle it! We’ve both been talking about it from day one. We just have to build up the ol’ bank account first. Darn you money. Why do you always make us wait? Haha. Oh well, it’s fun to plan it and make sure we don’t do anything hasty that we’ll hate later while we’re waiting.
xo,
s
Donna Huebsch says
“Take That, Broken Light” sums up the attitude you have to have with some of this stuff. My hubby had a similar issue recently, only his was “Take That, Switched Outlet”:
http://donnahuebsch.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/the-mystery-of-the-middle-light-switch/
a.ka. shameless PLUG for our blog (ooo-o-o, a pun!)
It gets to be a personal vendetta at times, but it is SO satisfying to make something work.
Jenni says
I so wanted that light fixture! I tried to convince hubby to let me buy it, but he wanted to go a cheaper route. We found another one at Home Depot that was okay (and on sale for $100) but it doesn’t have the same effect as that capiz chandelier from West Elm. I wish I had just gone ahead and bought the West Elm capiz light fixture… :(
L says
John — thank you for sharing that I’m not the only one who shuts down power to the whole house when I’m working on something! Mike may be right, but I’d still rather be safe than shocked.
And yeah, sometimes the “take it apart and put it back together” fix works — and sometimes Black Bros. Electric makes a profit on me.
Congrats on solving this one!
Sarah says
Good work! I like to keep score vs. my house (currently I’m waaay in the lead) But it’ll be an interesting day and hopefully not too scary story when the house evens the score…
Katie says
My friends just got that west elm light and it is GORGEOUS!!!
Kim says
LOVE that Chandy guys!
Wesley says
Everyone needs a couple of no contact voltage testers:
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=no+contact+voltage+tester&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=15995137692980497151&sa=X&ei=GJrITZ_OAcPL0QHNndj9Bw&ved=0CEcQ8wIwAg#
If you had one, you could have poked it up into your lamp socket and easily and instantly found out that you did indeed have power at the socket (it wouldn’t have mattered that the wire was disconnected). These things are a lifesaver; both quite literally, and in time saved figuring stuff out.
Amy says
I found your site by accident one day while I was googling inspirational kitchen photos. haha
I’m so glad I found this site, it’s absolutely amazing. You 4 (including burger) are hillarious!
My husband and I bought our first house a year ago, it was a foreclosure. We thought “hey this will be great we can make everything excactly ,how we want it”. Well, that part it true…..but it’s so much more work than anticipated! haha I’m sure you understand completely. We’ve done tons of DIY rojects and have a thousand more to go, but we’ll get there eventually. If you guys every want to do a project in Texas let me know! :)
YoungHouseLove says
Haha- will do! So glad you found us. Good luck with your house!
xo,
s
Amy says
Is there a way for me to start at the very beginning of your blog and read up to now?
YoungHouseLove says
Yup, here the first post: https://www.younghouselove.com/2007/09/the-blog-begins/
Then just click “next” to scroll through the whole thing! Have fun and good luck making it through all that- haha!
xo,
s