I Am Very, Very, Stupid.

Deco Light
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

This entry was nearly entitled “I Am A Very Dead Person”. Very nearly indeed.

The artfully cropped picture shows a newly fitted lampshade. Bought at a sale today, it appears to be an Art Deco piece. The glass shade attaches to a metal base. It looks good and fulfils a need for an enclosed bulb in the room. All the modern lampshades I’ve seen haven’t appealed as much as this one does and I’ve looked at a lot of them.

Buying lampshades doesn’t kill you though, fitting them can.

The old pendant lamp is interesting in that it has two switches. One on the wall by the door and one hanging from the ceiling on the other side of the room. Remove the old rose and fit the new one - easy.

Since I am by nature a careful person I switched the light on and then off again to make sure there was no power in the wires. Then I unscrewed the cover on the rose. Inside there were lots of wires. Three red ones connected together and three black ones. Two of the later connected to one wire on the bulb and the other went to complete the circuit on the other side. Obviously the electrician had been playing fast and lose with the colours when he wired the house.

This isn’t good but it didn’t seem too difficult to work out. When I replaced the fitting the three red wires get connected together in a chocolate block and the black wires go into the connection for the bulb.

It was when I disconnected the third red wire that it hit me. Literally. A nasty electric shock that made me make a hell of a loud noise. Despite my care I’d not bothered turning off the electricity to the house lights and one of the wires was still live thanks to the weird wiring. I only touched the wire for a fraction of a second and yet felt the tremors in my arm. Despite standing on a 2 foot tall wooden stool in thick rubber soled shoes on a wooden floor I had nearly electrocuted myself.

There is still the chance of brain damage thanks to be beating myself on the head for being so stupid. No more basic a rule for working with electricity exists than - Turn It Off When Fiddling.

Finished and working, my light looks really nice. Pity it was nearly so expensive.