• Mood: accomplished

new wall sconces!

My mom had seen some cool fake candle electrical wall sconces she thought might go in my house and they weren't even too expensive. Of course, when she pointed them out in the Roseville Home Depot, only the display model was there, none to buy, and they're not listed on homedepot.com. With Mardi Gras inbetween, I didn't have any chance go to the Home Depot by work until Friday, when I bought two of those sconces to try. Since they're quite castley, I didn't think they'd go as well in the guest room or the office, since those won't be castle-themed inside those rooms, so just my bedroom & the piano room to start.



My parents were freaking out that I was going to do anything electrical by myself, but I really wasn't that concerned. Since all I was doing was taking the currently working sconces down & putting the new ones in their places, with the power shut off first, of course, as long as I paid attention to how the other ones hooked up & followed the instructions included in the sconces I bought, I figured I should be fine. I've seen light-fixture replacements a million times on HGTV! ;) I did wait until daylight which was Saturday afternoon (thanks for the extra hand, mrmouse!), successfully found which circuit was the piano room light, took the old sconce down, put the new one up (yes, the grounding line & screw for the sconce has nothing to connect to coming from the house wiring, but that's the way my house is without grounded power) & voila!





Since the junction box for the wiring is really solidly in the wall, probably well-anchored to a stud, it would take a lot of wall destruction to even find out if I could move the box to get the fixture to hang lower than the air vent, so I think I'll live with it...it will unfortunately be more obvious when I get the stone effect on the walls in there, but we'll see...

Since the "waxy" bit is a hollow glass surround and just slightly off-white, I have already made a template for a transparent colored gel to go inside to change color for parties or seasons. I'm thinking I'll have to buy actual lighting gels since it does get warm, but I might try just some wrapping cellophane to see if that works. ;)

I waited until Sunday morning for my bedroom sconce, which I installed completely by myself. Since this time I really knew what I was doing & the possible pitfalls, like the attachment screws hitting exactly where the junction box walls were, so I had to change screws to the shorter ones originally meant for anchoring the plate to the box, it went even more quickly, even with juggling the screwdriver & wire nuts in my pocket while holding the wired sconce in my other hand...so voila again!







So, what do you think? :)