DIY Fail

Over the past year, we have done a lot of DIY projects around the house.  Doug has been great with all of the projects that have required strength and especially those that have included painting.  A lot of the other ones have involved my Dad and I.  We have replaced lights, made toilets flush correctly and fixed doorknobs just to name a few.  When he hasn't been here physically to help, I have called my Dad to see if he had the tools that I needed to do the job or had him listen to what I was thinking before I tried the project.  

Although we have had to call in professional help when we couldn't fix an issue - Syracuse Glass to replace a window pane, the plumber to fix two leaks, Bill's Heating to put in a new thermostat - all of the projects that Doug, my Dad and I have worked on have been successful so far.  That  included putting in an electric cap on an exposed outside box today.  

Unfortunately, we met our match this evening.  I had wanted to take out a light switch on the side of the fireplace that had never really had a purpose.  It had an extra wire that didn't seem to have a purpose, so my Dad and I cut it, put a plate on the switch and went about our day.  I realized shortly afterward that the three outlets on that side of the living room no longer worked.  I thought that maybe the fuse didn't get pushed back correctly, but after checking the basement electrical box, I knew that we had made an error.  That switch must have provided the connection to the outlets from the rest of the living room.  I called my Dad, he and I looked at it, and eventually decided that we should just call an electrician.  We didn't want to cause any other issues.

I was pretty bummed for awhile that my DIY project had failed.  That feeling quickly went away as I watched Cameron work on our Victrola record player.  We had noticed earlier in the week that it was not playing the correct speed.  Everyone was singing a lot slower than normal.  Instead of paying $50 to buy a new record player, Cameron went on YouTube, watched how to take apart the player and change a belt.  That didn't solve the problem right away, but as soon as he turned the screws next to the motor, we realized that the speed had changed.  He spent the next fifteen minutes fining tuning it and soon had Sam Cook sounding like his old self instead of a chipmunk singing about "chicken slacks."  I was impressed with his engineering skills, very glad to have the record player fixed and thankful for the reminder that we had accomplished a lot on our own this year.  I definitely had nothing to be ashamed of with the light switch.