If it Ain’t Broke, it Can Still be Fixed

We have a tendency to just live with things even if they aren’t totally perfect. We don’t need the latest, greatest, newest, shiniest things. But then that means we don’t know what kind of new things are out there. 

Our house was built 30 years ago (not by us by they way, we’ve only lived here for 20 years). They put fluorescent lights in several of the usual locations – the garage, the laundry room, most of the closets, and a few other random places. The good news is most of them were still working just fine so we haven’t had to worry about replacing bulbs.

The one in my closet and the ones in the garage have been a little wonky. Sometimes, you have to flip the switch multiple times to get them to come on fully. Sometimes, they just don’t feel like it and remain in a state of semi-darkness. Wasn’t a big deal for the garage but it was kind of a pain at times if I was trying to find a particular shirt when it was dark outside.

I’ve stated before that nobody would ever describe me as “handy” and the last thing I wanted to do was try to replace one of those bulbs. Plus, those long tubes can’t just be tossed into the trash so we’d have to deal with finding a place to recycle them. They say it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness but sometimes it is easier to live in the darkness.

We’ve had bulbs replaced – by people who know what they are doing but we had let these go for a bit. Recently, we had some painting done in several rooms by a guy we trust and my wife asked him about the lights. The good news is he knew someone and he started to tell us about the newer fixtures that are self-contained LEDs so you don’t have bulbs to worry about anymore. If these fail, you do have to replace the whole fixture but it still seemed like a better option.

So we called the electrician and he explained it all to us. Some of these fixtures have different settings so you can select from soft light to daylight. All of this was new to us. This is when you feel old and behind the times but it is also kind of fun to just be amazed by new stuff. 

As it turns out, this guy remembered me from my corporate job even though he left the company long before I did. I recognized his face but I’m bad with names but I don’t think I ever would have placed him. Turns out, he’s done a lot of work for others who use to work there so he used the connections well. 

He actually has a regular job so he came both Saturday and Sunday afternoon to replace all the old fixtures with the bright new LED ones. I can actually see the clothes in my closet now. Every time we do something like this, we both wonder why it took us so long and my wife is already talking about replacing the overhead fixture in her office because we are tired of changing the bulbs. Who knows, maybe we’ll just end up with nothing but new shiny lights in the house.