The joys of owning a home
If I have need to remind myself about the value of patience and perseverance, I just need to look up at the ceiling.
The whole process of installing a ceiling fan transformed this mechanical device into somthing much more. It represents another milestone reached in creating my home and another great story to add to the collection of homeownership.
In the living room, there is a sliding glass door and windows that look out onto the canyon and Omega Bridge. It's a beautiful view but I've discovered that the sun sears through the glass and bakes the room during the spring and summer. I concluded that a ceiling fan was the solution to this problem and my grandfather generously bought me one.
It arrived neatly arranged and packaged in a cardboard box and my father came over with a ladder and bucket of tools to help install it. We poured through the directions and dutifully went step by step. Everything went smoothly until we flipped the switch. The fan moved and the light went on, just not correctly. The light would flicker, fade and die away while the fan sporadically spun around. We punched buttons on the fan's remote and flipped the light switch on and off. Nothing. We flipped once again through pages in the instruction manual and came up with no new answers. The work started at noon and at 4 p.m. my father and I gave up. He promised to return with a new light switch that should do the trick.
The next day my mother and I were driving towards Santa Fe and my father headed over to my house with a new light switch. He called us on the road with good news - the fan worked! I came home and tried it out myself and the thing worked like a charm.
Later that night, however, my good fortune unraveled. As a friend and I watched a video, the fan suddenly, without any button pressed or light switch thrown, began to spin. We watched from the sofa as the blades whirrled around and around. It was if an invisible ploterogist was using it as a pinwheel.
I didn't want to share the bad news with my father after he dedicated an entire weekend standing on a ladder and cranning his neck to look at the intricate parts of the ceiling fan. Eventually, I admitted the truth.
He pulled out the metal ladder once again to discover the source of the problem. Calling me at work, my father declared it to be the receiver. Flipping the light switch on and off had fried the electical component. A new one was ordered and my father came over to replace it, but still there was no improvement. An electrician was called up, an appointment was set, the fan was dissembled and the new receiver was declared a dud.
For a bit, the fan was just a metal stub jutting out from the cieling while another receiver was shipped. But by the time the third one arrived, my father could take apart the fan and put it back together with his eyes closed.
The experience paid off; it's been almost a week and the fan still operates the way it was intended.
This process has shown me just how much I took for granted in the past. Flipping on a light, or turning on a fan, running a garbage disposal or operating any other household item, I just assumed it would always work.
Owning a house has opened my eyes to the million and one things that can go wrong, the thought that is required to fix the problems and the huge miracles that occur every time something is corrected. It makes homeownership that much more interesting. And it makes me more appreciative to have an extermely helpful father.
The whole process of installing a ceiling fan transformed this mechanical device into somthing much more. It represents another milestone reached in creating my home and another great story to add to the collection of homeownership.
In the living room, there is a sliding glass door and windows that look out onto the canyon and Omega Bridge. It's a beautiful view but I've discovered that the sun sears through the glass and bakes the room during the spring and summer. I concluded that a ceiling fan was the solution to this problem and my grandfather generously bought me one.
It arrived neatly arranged and packaged in a cardboard box and my father came over with a ladder and bucket of tools to help install it. We poured through the directions and dutifully went step by step. Everything went smoothly until we flipped the switch. The fan moved and the light went on, just not correctly. The light would flicker, fade and die away while the fan sporadically spun around. We punched buttons on the fan's remote and flipped the light switch on and off. Nothing. We flipped once again through pages in the instruction manual and came up with no new answers. The work started at noon and at 4 p.m. my father and I gave up. He promised to return with a new light switch that should do the trick.
The next day my mother and I were driving towards Santa Fe and my father headed over to my house with a new light switch. He called us on the road with good news - the fan worked! I came home and tried it out myself and the thing worked like a charm.
Later that night, however, my good fortune unraveled. As a friend and I watched a video, the fan suddenly, without any button pressed or light switch thrown, began to spin. We watched from the sofa as the blades whirrled around and around. It was if an invisible ploterogist was using it as a pinwheel.
I didn't want to share the bad news with my father after he dedicated an entire weekend standing on a ladder and cranning his neck to look at the intricate parts of the ceiling fan. Eventually, I admitted the truth.
He pulled out the metal ladder once again to discover the source of the problem. Calling me at work, my father declared it to be the receiver. Flipping the light switch on and off had fried the electical component. A new one was ordered and my father came over to replace it, but still there was no improvement. An electrician was called up, an appointment was set, the fan was dissembled and the new receiver was declared a dud.
For a bit, the fan was just a metal stub jutting out from the cieling while another receiver was shipped. But by the time the third one arrived, my father could take apart the fan and put it back together with his eyes closed.
The experience paid off; it's been almost a week and the fan still operates the way it was intended.
This process has shown me just how much I took for granted in the past. Flipping on a light, or turning on a fan, running a garbage disposal or operating any other household item, I just assumed it would always work.
Owning a house has opened my eyes to the million and one things that can go wrong, the thought that is required to fix the problems and the huge miracles that occur every time something is corrected. It makes homeownership that much more interesting. And it makes me more appreciative to have an extermely helpful father.
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| My father and I working on the fan. |
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