The Solution to All My Remodeling Woes

Or
   
Bruce is da Man!

When we last left the big living room project, the light fixture was like this:

one big, messy can of worms

I had wanted to rearrange some light switches in the living room, and one in the hallway/kitchen, so that they made more sense to me. Instead I got the kitchen hallway light pulled out, and couldn't figure out how to even rewire it back the way it originally was. Our friend Daniel came over for a little while to work on it, but had to leave before he could finish it. Fortunately he got the wires put away enough that we could turn the breaker back on and still use our living room light—and the hallway/entry light too! (You may read about it in detail here if you really want to—scroll to about halfway down the post.)

Well, my very manly and amazing husband has been home for a week, and he fixed it all up for me!

In this picture you can see that the wires
already look a lot less messy.

First he got the kitchen/hallway light to work. This included his removing the wire for the three-way switch.

I wanted this to go away.

He did it!

The offending wire—and its switch—lie on the floor
like a snake in death throes.

And look at this!

It lives! It works! It looks fabulous!

After he got the kitchen/hall light working the right way, he moved all the wires around to the way I wanted them to be. Because he is awesome! 

Can you actually see what happened here?
It's pretty cool.

Here you can see how he switched the switches (well, the wiring). 

All of this planning and moving of the lighting wires did have an unexpected side-effect on me. For the entire time we've lived in this house I really have flipped the right-hand switch when I came through the front door and wanted the living room light on. If I was already in the house I knew that that switch would turn on the outside lights; that was not a problem. And the other two—the entry and kitchen hall switches—were guesswork every single time.

Then I labeled them so I could rewire them. And then I left it like that for a few weeks, and learned which switch switched what. Now I have to relearn them. But, as this arrangement is much more intuitive, and I am a clever girl, I think I'll get it pretty quickly. If not, I will just have to write it all on the wall.

Anyway, my amazing husband fixed the mess I made of the kitchen/hall light, and he rewired the living room switches the way I wanted them to be, and he put in the new LED light fixtures I bought for the hall lights, and he installed the new flat switches that I like. And then he went to the other side of the living room and put a flat switch there. And then he put flat switches into the great room too! (I had replaced two switches in there, but there were three more to go.)

Bruce happily switches the light switches.

AND, as if all of that were not enough, Bruce also replaced the thermo-couple in the great room fireplace, so now we have heat in that room again! (I did not break the fireplace! Although at first I thought I did because it quit working when I turned off the breaker to replace the light switches. This made no sense, because I'd been playing with the breakers for days and the fireplace survived it. This bad thermo-couple really, truly was not my fault!)

Jessica enjoys the fruits of Bruce's labors.

So this past week Bruce got here, fixed everything I messed up and other things I might possibly have messed up in my future remodeling efforts, and made life thoroughly enjoyable for me. 'Cause Bruce is da Man!