If my husband leaves me tomorrow, I blame the chandelier. I won’t hold a grudge against it, but it will definitely receive every side-eye I have to give from now on. It will suspend above my dining room table mockingly reminding me of my overwhelming desire to leap before I look. Of course, it’s not the chandelier’s fault. It’s 100%, unwaveringly my fault. I cannot contain myself sometimes and this time was no different.
It started with my mother, as most of these types of things tend to. She moved into her new condo and found herself in possession of an extra chandelier. She brought the one from her previous house with her, as one does, you see. So she didn’t need the one hanging perfectly safe and sound in her new condo.
This is the part where I leap.
Me: Did you already give it away?
Mom: No. Do you want it?
Me: Yes, please!
Like I’m going to say no to a FREE chandelier?! Don’t be ridiculous!
Then we get it to my house and Hubs, bless his soul forever, tries to flush mount it to the ceiling per his wife’s request. Now, Hubs is not the handiest of men, but he knows a thing or two about electrical things and boasts a solid resume of ceiling fan installation. I don’t know about you, but that was enough for me, so I let him have at it.
About three hours and lots of new words later, I attempt to find the installation instructions or, at the very least, the manufacturer contact information for this fantastic FREE chandelier. I wasn’t sure I would survive telling him what I found 15 minutes later.
You see, this particular chandelier won’t flush mount. That’s right, y’all. It’s not made to be flush mounted and cannot be flush mounted. Um….oops?
So then Hubs, seriously bless his soul FOREVER, sits at the dining room table and attempts to devise a way to reassemble the cut and stripped wire he just cut and stripped and shove through a pipe the width of my pinky. After an hour, I conceded defeat and asked him to stop. Just put up the old one and let’s move on.
Nope. Can’t. Old chandelier’s wires aren’t color-coded and he wasn’t expecting to put it back up, so he wasn’t paying attention to which one went where. That’s all totally understandable. Now I have no chandelier and the potential to electrocute Hubs, which I DO NOT WANT.
So what do we do?
Laugh about our first world problem and hit the internet to find a new NOT FREE chandelier.
This is where I start to get a little cranky.
Chandeliers, as it turns out, are not inexpensive, nor are they carried in great quantities in our local home improvement stores. I quickly found that all the ones even close to my price range of “we don’t have money for this insane first-world emergency” are carried online or just sold out for Black Friday. Who the heck needs a chandelier for Black Friday?! Apparently me.
About a half hour later, we left Miss O with my Mom and found ourselves in the car on the way to the not-as-close-to-us-but-just-as-good-Lowes on Sunday night after Thanksgiving driving on the main highway watching the traffic build on the other side of the road, dreading the ride back and chuckling about our spontaneous date night. It seems we weren’t far off because Lowes had FREE POPCORN! It’s the little things that make me happy.
Bless Giphy.com and their souls forever, too.
We left without the chandelier we came for, but with one seemingly better suited for our space at the same price. Good enough, right?
It sat in its box for two days until I nagged Hubs enough to hang the silly thing so we could stop eating off the coffee table. (No, it did not occur to any of us to move a lamp in that room. Give me a break, this is high drama I’m working through!)
The third night I assembled it and then he attacked it with purpose. We worked together to get that thing up there and it looked good…until he turned the power back on and we heard a loud pop. Fortunately, no one was hurt and no bulbs were shattered. We couldn’t tell if the smoky smell was the chandelier or the candles I had just blown out in anticipation of finally getting some sleep after messing with this foolish fixture.
“I’m calling an electrician.” His words, not mine.
I felt so badly for him. He was so close and we honestly have no idea what went wrong. I have a sneaking suspicion the electrician will take one look at the electrical system in our house and deem it antiquated and unfit to support new-fangled lighting.
I guess I’d better find a nice lamp.
Suburban Jackpot 
I never say no to anything free. Except free kittens, as they end up being the most expensive kittens of all. My husband is very good at all kinds of things, and believes he can do many more. I learned years ago to call my trusty handyman (who had just turned 80 when I last spoke to him) and ask him how long and how hard it would be to do said new project. While the husband estimated 3 hours to do it, the handyman explained it would take him a full day to do it, including setting up his own little wood shop in our garage, and hopefully he could avoid cracking the 1962 countertops. I now always have someone else install the big stuff. It is worth it to keep myself and the husband sane(ish).
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