The work on the entryway is slow going, but it’s going. Back in the winter, I purchased two teardrop chandeliers from PB Teen that were on sale. When I finally got around to putting the first one up in the spring, we discovered that it was defective. I was so disappointed when I checked the website and saw they were no more. The lamp was tinkered with and deemed okay as long as the bulb wasn’t changed. So I stuck a bulb in there that would last for 30 years and hoped for the best. A week went by and then it died for real. Since so much time had passed, I never thought the store would give me a refund so I settled into the idea that the hallway would only have one light. But I didn’t like it. The lighting placement looked lopsided and there was a very ugly glob of plaster in the ceiling at the other end that I’d made worse by gouging at it with a knife thinking there was a box for a light fixture there.

One day I decided to do a web search for “teardrop chandelier” to see if I could find something similar that would look good with the existing light. And the first thing that popped up was the same chandelier from PB Teen! It was back! I called them and told them the story. To my surprise and delight, they said they would send me a replacement chandelier right away even though it was months since I’d bought it. Old school customer service.

PB Teen Teardrop Chandeliers

The electrician that has installed and fixed all of the light fixtures in the apartment is a woman named Deb Lee. I really like the fact that she is a woman electrician. In my mind there are two jobs that clearly fall under the responsibility of the man of the house:

1. Dealing with all potential electrocution scenarios.
2. The removal of dead vermin.

So I’m in awe of Deb.

Deb Lee at work

When the new chandelier arrived, Deb came to install it along with her colleague Eric. She told me that it would look so much better to run the cabling inside the ceiling instead of just hiding the wires with a wiremold. Eric was there to plaster away the holes. He even covered the glob that was such an eyesore. Good craftspeople who are skilled and care about what they do are hard to find – I am lucky. More to come…

Eric hard at work