The light in the third bedroom of my house had issues. Sure, it turned on and off on cue, but that's about all that it had going for it. The light fixture is brass, the light switch is black, both have been in the house since the beginning of time, and both are caked with decades of wall paint because painter's tape was not a thing that any of the previous homeowners believed in, apparently. And there was this hippy-dippy-trippy bead string thing hanging beside the exposed bulb, one of the 'treasures' left behind by the previous occupant.



So, nearing the end of my third year in this house, I decided that it was finally time to tackle this light situation. That I was feeling motivated is the good news. The less good news is that I know less about electricity than just about any other subject. Obscure grammar rules? No prob. The lyrics of every Hanson song ever recorded? Know 'em all. Subway's daily sandwich special schedule? Yup. Live electrical wires? Uuuhhh...

Safety first, friends. Cut the power before going to it with a screwdriver and wire cutters. Flip the circuit switch in the breaker box. If you're lucky, your electrician didn't install them upside down and he also had marginally better handwriting than your family doctor. Mine did and didn't, respectively. The upside down scribbling was pretty fun to decipher, but I eventually figured out which switch cut the power to the third bedroom. Flip!



Now you're ready to go to it! First, aesthetics!



Step 1: Remove bulb and wipe with damp cloth.



Step 2: Carefully protect wall with Cheerios boxes (the official tool of professional painters everywhere.)



Step 3: Go to it with spray paint.

There are like a gabillion cans of spray paint at Home Depot, so how do you know which to use? I chose the spray paint that came in a can on which "metal" was featured prominently on the front. I also chose the highest gloss one that I could find because, well, shiny things are shiny. Doesn't everyone like shiny things? Spray spray spray. And what do you know? The paint stuck! Two coats of white greatly improved the ugh-factor of this light fixture, no?

Moving on. Undeterred by such details as 'knowledge' and 'safety', this morning I marched into the third bedroom screwdriver and electrical tape in hand. (Truth be told, I don't really know what electrical tape is for, but it seems like the sort of thing you'd need for a project like this.) Actually, safety is totally a thing, and knowing that I'd actually be sticking metal tools into outlets today, I cut the power to the whole house just to be on the safe side. The interwebs says that you should also test the wires with a fancy-schmancy electricity measure do-hickey, but I don't have one of those, so I took my chances. Don't try this at home.

So take off the switch plate and you've got this. A standard black electrical switch circa 1953 covered in dust, dirt, and paint.



Vacuum up an dust and cobwebs. (Use a handheld Dust Buster or a vacuum with a long cord attached to an electrical outlet outside of the room. Don't turn the power back on to plug in the vacuum to vacuum out the outlet!) Then take out the screws. Now you've got a standard black electrical switch circa 1953 hanging out of the wall by a couple of wires.



Whoever installed this thing back in the day got quite the deal. 37 cents! I think that I paid a couple of bucks for the new one from Home Depot.

So the interwebs tells me that you want to see two or three wires here. One should be black; one should be white; one should be a third colour that isn't black or white. I only had two wires, a black one and a yellowing off-white one that I took to be white enough to call white. If I understand my Youtube videos correctly, the black wire brings the power in and the white wire takes the power out. But don't take my word for that; I don't even know what electrical tape is for.

The end of each of these wires is stripped of the plastic covering and the exposed wire is looped around a screw on either side of the switch. It makes a difference which one goes on the top and which one goes on the bottom, so pay attention. Better yet, take a photo before you unhook it all so you're not second guessing yourself later. Photo taken? Now unscrew the screws on either side of the switch to release the wires.



You can hold with your left hand and unscrew with your right hand if you want. It's just that I'm left-handed so I do everything backwards. (Did you know that lefties have a statistically higher likelihood of being in accidents than righties and not surprisingly have an average lifespan that is nine years shorter than their right-handed counterparts? But lefty or righty, don't ever stick a screw driver against a live wire, kids. That's just not a good idea for anyone.)



Voila! Say good riddance to the old switch and get yourself a shiny new one. Now, follow the steps outlined above but this time, in the reverse order! Tip: Printed on the metal part of the shiny new switch is the word "TOP". Put this side at the top. Use a pair of pliers to re-bend the black wire around the top screw in a clockwise direction and the white wire around the bottom screw in a clockwise direction. I don't know why clockwise is so important, but the entire interwebs insists that it must be so. And the interwebs never lies.

Now gently push the wires back into the wall and screw the shiny new switch snugly in.



Then re-install the switch plate.



Now it's safe to turn your power back on, so go do that. I'll wait here.



Done? Okay then. Moment of truth! Flip that switch!



Bam! Let there be light! Project success! You might call this a lightbulb moment. Har har.

Also, for future reference, no electrical tape was harmed in the midst of this project. Still don't really know what that stuff is for.