Living Room Update

Last weekend we took on a really fun project. You see the fan in the living room? Well I've been wanting to replace it for a long time. I REALLY wanted to replace it after it was volleyball spiked one night while we were playing the kinnect. Ever since then it has wobbled like crazy unless it is on super low speed. We wanted to get a flush mount fan, to get it closer to the ceiling. And we wanted can lights, so the light fixture didn't stick down. Well take a gander: 

Pretty dang awesome right? It makes the room so much brighter and look a lot taller. I can't even reach the fan now, so I have no worries while I'm working out or dancing on the kinnect.

Step one was, we had to cut the holes. I placed the templates (making sure we cleared all trusses). I started cutting the first one... but Chris finished the rest. It is really hard to cut those dang holes above your head! 

 Next we daisy chained wire around and wired the cans from below. A much better tactic than when we wired the kitchen... those we put the cans up first, then wired them in the attic. Having a ladder for a chair and not breathing insulation most certainly beats wiring in the attic.

Next came pushing the cans in. They went in just fine. We tested them all to make sure they worked. Then according to the direction we were to "push the clips flat to the housing". There are these little clips that you push from the inside of the can and they wrap around and down the outside of the can and push down on the gypsum board ceiling. Pushing them "flat to the housing" was not an easy task. I got lots of pictures of Chris waging full on war with those clips, but I liked this picture... he seems so defeated. However, eventually, we got them all to snap "flat to the housing". By we I should say Chris because I don't think I ever got one to go. 

Next came the fan. We had to switch off the power a lot, so our head lamp came in real handy as you can see here. The fan turned out to be really easy.  Oh and what I didn't mention is that we had to add  a switch for the fan. Since the fan and lights were on the same switch before (since they were the same fixture) and we wanted to be able to run the fan without the lights. Our buddy who's dad is an electrician helped us with the 3-way switch and adding the new switch. Since I demanded to have the new switch in the same faceplate as all the other switches, Chris and Virgil spent who knows how long slowly ripping out the original box so that we could install the new retro fit box. I am very happy we did cause it looks great. And I forgot to mention the can lights are on a dimmer switch, sweet huh?

This is also a new addition to the living room. It's my "Guy-Jah" or elephant (spelled gajah). This was the thing I really wanted from Bali. It is so cool! I spent the whole time in Bali looking for the perfect one (plus the perfectly priced one).

And I really liked these two little people. I like how they look unified and are looking up to heaven. Hopefully Chris and I can try to be more like them, even though we are not black, or aborigines...

And that's what's going down in our living room. Well except for a lot of booty-licious dancing. I love the new dance game for the Kinnect! Chris played it with me tonight.