Another Ceiling Fan

One day I'll be able to install a ceiling fan from start to finish without a ton of issues, but this time and last time were not the time...

I FINALLY got my spare room ceiling fan installed correctly. It's been functional for a while, but was not connected to the light switch. I had connected black and blue fan wires to the electrical box black live wire, and the white fan wire to the electrical box white wire. Well... turns out, in my house, the electrical box red live wire is the one that is connected to the switch, so the black and blue wires need to be connected to that instead. The electrical smoke detector needed to be connected to the black live wire, but I had to remove that anyway because it was too close to the fan. It took me many adjustments to get this fan up over the span of months, but I was determined to fix it today and Amanda was great enough to hang out with me (and hand me screws) so that I could do it.

I have a rule that I can't do electrical stuff without someone else around (ya know, that whole possibly electrocuting yourself safety thing). I'm just glad I had the motivation to fix it when I had someone over today.

FYI - fan manuals don't tell how to hook up the wires, but this website was helpful.

Little Fan for Little Room

The joys of living attached

I live in a side-by-side duplex, which makes my place an "attached" house/dwelling. For months the other 1/2 of the duplex has been unoccupied. The owners decided they would try to sell it and the renters moved out. I didn't notice much difference because normally I can only hear people in the other side going up and down the stairs.
I'm not sure if the house has been sold or not (pesky bad housing market), but for the past week or two, people have been renovating the home during the daytime. I only knew this because there was a bathtub in the front yard one evening, and more recently, I have seen the people wrapping up their days' work around the time I get home.

I was teleworking yesterday and all day they were making a racket. I was fairly certain it was the same racket I made 2 years prior... sure enough they were sanding the floors. Luckily for me, no one was living in that half when I was sanding floors since a large amount of my sanding was done while burning the midnight oil. (btw- I'm just using the expression. I know my house was a disaster, so I feel compelled to clarify that I did, in fact, have electricity).

I came home last night to a familiar potent scent that must have permeated through the fire wall. Oh joys!

This is a PSA to be careful when using sealant because if I was able to smell it strongly through cinder blocks, it's evident that it's extremely potent!

And I'm back... with ART!

I haven't blogged for the mere fact that I haven't actually done much work on the house. I have done more garden maintenance and started patching some holes/cracks in drywall, but nothing worth blogging about. And I've been out of town a lot attending weddings and helping out family. Besides, a single girl deserves a break from breaking nails sometimes!

One of my great friends gave me a book that had instructions about how to use CD jewel cases to make wall art. The short of it is you use the jewel cases as a frame to have cool textured art. The long of it is:

1. Find a picture you want to use (mine is from a trip I took to Scotland)
2. Use this program to divide the picture into the sizes you want. I did it differently and learned about this potentially better way afterward (see trials below)
3. Print the pdf doc from the program
4. Cut out pictures
5. Insert pictures into CD cases
6. Use velcro to attach cases to the wall

My Woes - I decided to pay for a custom-size poster of the picture to then cut up into the appropriate size for the CD cases. I got the poster from the online company and it was not, in fact, the size I ordered. I wasn't going to waste it though, so I made a smaller, non-rectangular piece of art.
If you think you may try this with some of your old CD jewel cases, here's a good resource.