Chuck the Writer Does Not Blow Up His House

Whenever my wife gets angry at me for something, she brings up this little nugget -

"The reason we bought this house was that I thought I married a handyman who could fix or repair anything!"

Moi?

So while my wife is visiting my daughter in Seattle for a week, I decided this would be a good time to do some minor upgrades and repairs around the house - you know, little things that can be learned from reading "How-To 123" books from Home Depot and watching several "How-To" videos on YouTube.

First thing that needed fixing was a faulty light switch that powered the lights in the back hallway. The light switch at the top of the stairs wouldn't flip completely to the ON position, so the light could not be controlled upstairs (i.e., if it was on, I couldn't turn it off).

Trip to Home Depot. I purchased a Leviton 3-Way Lighted (15A-120V) light switch, along with some black electrical tape, a slotted screwdriver, some needle-nosed pliers and a white face plate. After turning off the circuit breaker to that part of the house, I unscrewed the fugly face plate, and pulled the burned-out switch out of its housing. There were three wires that needed to be connected to this unit - I disconnected the wires from the old, burned-out switch and connected the wires to the new switch. I wrapped the unit in black electrical tape, and screwed it back into the wall housing. I added the new bone-white face plate, turned on the circuit, and ...

Just so you know, I'm not typing this blog from beyond the grave. That should give you an indication that I ain't dead yet.

Not only did the switch work without any trouble, but it also is an "illuminated" switch in that the toggle switch itself lights up in the dark. So if the lights are out and you need to see what you're doing, you can find the switch and turn on the power.

Project #1 finished. Let me see what I can do for Project #2. Fa fa!!