The task for the last couple of nights was to change out the crappy looking fake gold old fashioned “porch lights” on either side of the large garage door the cars go through (contrasted with the small side garage door that persons go through). I had some nice newer motion sensor 100 watt halogen light fixtures that I wanted to put up that run at dim all night until someone steps into range and then they kick into oh my god the aliens have landed bright (or close). I am, you will find if you talk to me much, a big fan of absolute dark or absolute noon sunlight bright. Anything in between seems half hearted and just plain wrong.
It has been a project I have been wanting to work on for some time but just couldn’t find time to do it. I am almost finished putting in insulation and luan on the walls so I figured I better take care of these lights before I cover up the back sides of them.
Well color (colour – nope that still doesn’t look right) me not surprised… The folks who lived in the house before us were out and out incredibly lucky idiots. Seriously. The number of things they did wrong that could have killed them is now beyond count. As I took off one of the lights I realized what a huge electrical kluge they put together with some sort of tape, I think medical, yes medical, not electrical tape nor electrical wire twisties (I don’t know their official name). I then noticed that nothing was really standard with how the light was mounted or anything so yesterday I spent a couple of hours looking at the issues and wandering around Home Depot and Lowes coming up with a plan on how to correct the mess and tonight I implemented the unmessing on light fixture #1. I had to pick up a weatherproof electrical box I wasn’t expecting to get and the light sticks out about an inch further than is absolutely perfect but I will forget about it shortly knowing that it is now safer than it has been since I moved in. Tomorrow night I will knock down light fixture #2. I don’t expect anything worse than I have seen so far but possibly that can be classified as famous last words…. Once that fixture is done I get out the silicone and caulk those bastards and call that project wrapped. Then I can finish the garage insulation/luan project and start work on cleaning and organizing and getting the punching/kicking bag up.
I write this while seeing little purple spots floating all over the screen….Â
  joe
P.S. I haven’t forgotten, I need to post photos of the rock garden with the weeds, err I mean wild flowers. 🙂
P.P.S. Don’t forget folks, this coming weekend is the best for viewing the Perseids…
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Photos joe….photos….lets capture the imagination……
Perseids…too bad the moon is so big this year. I suppose it’s not really bigger (at least very much) than last year, but more of it will be throwing sunlight at us this year than last.
Those twisty things are called wire nuts.
I sympathise with you – our home’s former owner was a DIY fanatic. Sadly, he was absolutely crap at it. So we have doors that mostly close, but don’t quite latch, which I fixed with a couple of smacks on the back end of a chisel; phone jacks that don’t connect to a phone line; and when you use a toaster and a kettle in the kitchen upstairs, it trips the breaker, killing the power to the TV downstairs. Don’t get me started on the state of the wood flooring, or the scorch-marks on the studs around the plumbing fixtures behind the bath wall.
Thanks Paul. Wire nuts is what I finally recalled them as, but I looked at the package and saw Wire Connectors. Probably some conservative group thought the old name was too suggestive. 🙂