A guy junks his nearly-new Rolls-Royce and buys another one. When asked why, he says ‘The ashtray was full!’
The kitchen light was a dome ceiling fixture, similar (in concept) to this one. Note that there is no ‘tit’ on the bottom, which can be unscrewed so that the dome can be removed. Instead, like the one in the link, one turns the dome. Basically, the dome has ‘ears’ that engage protrusions on the bezel. I’m sure you can think of any number of things that have similar methods of attachment.
(What follows is long and terribly mundane.)
But there was a problem: The glass dome would not turn. It was as if it had been glued to the bezel. (And it probably was, being in the kitchen.) I’ve tried many times over the years to remove it, to no avail. But hey, as long as it lights up when I flip the switch there’s no problem. Yesterday, it didn’t come on. I tried once again to remove it, spraying the circumference with WD40 and tapping it with a mallet. The tapping actually made it work – for a little while. With no way to remove the dome (the lubricant didn’t work) we were left with no alternative. We would have to break the dome.
I was out running errands when the SO called to tell me the light was no longer coming on. We’d already decided to take the drastic action, and I was going to look at fixtures. I went to Home Depot, and their selection of similar fixtures was disappointing. I’d purchased dome lights there years ago, which had the knob on the bottom instead of the turn-the-dome system. I just didn’t care much for their current offerings. I called the SO, and she said I should look at Lowe’s. (I’m still a little miffed that Lowe’s caved to Christian zealots who pressured them to pull their support of a television show about Muslim-Americans.) Lowe’s had the style we wanted, but something looked fishy. Why do they come with bulbs? Nobody includes bulbs. Because the bulbs were not screw-base. They were CFLs with a couple of pins on the bottom. I do not want to have to buy special bulbs! We have plenty of screw-base CFLs, and we even have a bunch of leftover incandescent bulbs in case of emergency. Lowe’s did not have any dome fixtures that did not use those bulbs, unless I wanted to get something in a more rustic style – which I didn’t. Back to Home Depot. (My running around included passing by the exit for Lowe’s, and at least I finally found out where the Panda Express is.)
I selected a fixture from Home Depot. In our earlier conversation, the SO said she would never buy a lighting fixture unless she opened it and inspected it first. Taking her advice, I did. The fixture I selected used a fluorescent ring. :rolleyes: It’s 25 miles to town, and I don’t want to make a 50-mile trip when it fails when we have all of those screw-base CFLs in the house. I selected a different fixture. It’s not exactly what I was looking for, but it did have the knob and it was pretty close in style to the old fixture.
You all know how to change a ceiling fixture, right? It’s easy. Five minute’s work. We’ve put up two new ceiling fixtures just in the last year. It started well. I got to the point where you put in the two screws that fit into the key slots on the fixture. I could not get the heads through the holes! I tried removing the screws and inserting them through the holes with the intention of screwing them in. Nope. Didn’t work. I’d noticed that the old fixture had nuts where the screw heads were supposed to be. So I took everything apart and tried inserting the screws upside-down, and using the nuts from the old screws to hold the fixture up. That didn’t work. I’ve mentioned that this house is old, and things are not exactly standard. In the kitchen, there’s a half-inch of drywall on top of (or rather, the bottom) of the original ceiling. The fixture box was level with the original ceiling. The makers of the new fixture did not take into account non-standard installations, and the screws were simply too short. So I took the fixture off again (I lost count of how many times I’d put on and taken off the mount and connected and disconnected the wiring) and did not screw the mounting plate in all the way so that it was level with the drywall ceiling. Of course it was too floppy to get the screws through the keyholes.
I was exasperated. I was ready to just call the handyman and pay him twenty bucks to put it up for me. This is supposed to be a five-minute job, and the non-standard ceiling and the lack of foresight by the fixture manufacturer confounded me. The SO wouldn’t let me do that. We went to the small hardware store a few miles away and selected a pair of longer screws that seemed to be the same size as the one we brought with us. After a quick shopping stop elsewhere, it was home again to finish the job. The new screws didn’t screw in. :smack: I went back to the hardware store. This time I removed the mounting plate from the electrical box and took it with me. The new screws were 8-32, I think. They were too big. The kid at the hardware store tried 6-32. Too small. He tried metric screws. No joy. The mounting plate was apparently threaded for some bizarre size only used in China. The only screws that would remotely fit (and were long enough) were the ones that came with drywall toggles. They’re loose, but they won’t pull out. I bought a universal mounting plate just to be on the safe side.
Home again, I put in the new screws (less the toggle bits) and wired everything up again. The SO had to get on the stool to maneuver them into the keyholes, since her hands are smaller than mine. Together, we were almost done! Only when I tried to tighten the screws, they went through the slots. (As I said, they were a little loose; so they were too unstable to simply put the fixture on and twist.) Now this five-minute job is making me angry. The SO came off the stool and she was able to finesse the screws such that they held the fixture. Eventually I’ll need to get some washers so that the heads will not go through the slots.
This was nuts. I’ve changed fixtures before, and it takes no time at all. Having so much trouble with a simple job like this really made me feel like an idiot. And tossing a perfectly good fixture simply because the dome wouldn’t turn no matter how or what we tried is irksome.
Well, it’s up. The old fixture had two sockets, of which only one was occupied. The SO complained there was not enough light in the kitchen. The new fixture has three sockets, and they are filled with 60w compact fluorescent bulbs. It’s so bright in the kitchen that the SO said we should install a dimmer switch. That ain’t gonna happen. I don’t want to have to buy special dimmable CFL bulbs; and we only have the overhead light on when we’re cooking, which is when we want lots of light. All is well, except that I want to get those washers for the screws. But damn! that was a long ‘five-minute job’!
