Let There Be (A Little Less) Light

A few days ago, I mentioned to Jeff that it would be nice to install a dimmer switch on the dining room light. The chandelier in there is just so bright, and it's not very romantic, fancy dining room-esque (or whatever dining rooms are supposed to be... haha).

See? SO bright.

I was at Wal-Mart a few days later, and I stumbled upon a dimmer switch! It was only like $8 or something like that (I can't remember exactly now), so I stuck it in my cart.

When I got home I should've started studying for finals again, but instead I opened the dimmer switch package. The instructions looked so easy, so I decided to just do it right then and there!

I flipped the breaker to the dining room, took off the switchplate, and followed the instructions carefully.

I removed the switch box from the wall, then disconnected the wires...

Then I connected each wire to the wires in the new switch box with the little yellow thingies, stuffed everything back in the hole in the wall, and screwed in the new switch box.

When I flipped the breaker back on and re-installed the switchplate, I had this!

Ta-da! A nice little dimming knob!

Now, our dining room can have nice mood lighting for a fancy dinner. :)

This is the easiest house project I've done so far. It took like 15 minutes. I have absolutely no electrical experience whatsoever, and I did this really easily and really quickly. Anybody can do this! Plus, it's fun. You get to play with wires and pretend to be an electrician. And you get the satisfaction that comes from doing it yourself rather than having your husband do it (am I the only one that feels so proud of myself when I do stuff like this?).

Because it's hard to appreciate the full effect of the fabulous dimmable light in photos (and because I'm experimenting with the camera on my new phone), I took this video for y'all (which ended up being accompanied by the dramatic sounds of Pandora's "Classical Christmas" station... ha!):

If you're looking for a quick, cheap project with a big effect, I'd highly recommend installing a dimmer switch. I kind of want to put one on ALL our lights now, but I'm restraining myself. :)

PS - Law school final #3 of 4 is today... could y'all send some prayers and happy thoughts my way? I'm going to be SO happy to finally be done on Thursday!