Fan Club

The overhead fan in my room stopped being reversible; the fan in the office only had one speed, the highest; and the fan over the dining table quit altogether. I went fan shopping to replace the mismatched fans throughout the house with fans that were less obvious and more styled to complement one another. I found fans on sale as it's the end of the season, and bought five, one for each room in the house. All of the fans were in the $75 range, but when the guys arrived for the installation party last night, we discovered that three of them did not have light kits, a necessity in a home built without a single overhead fixture anywhere except the kitchen.

I had prepped, removing what parts were not connected to the actual electrical wiring, so while one guy and I began installing fans, the other one made a quick run to Lowe's to buy three light kits. Of course with every installation there was a glitch, but most of them were minor, so the process just kept moving from room to room. It took a full two hours, two huge pizzas from the Papa John's a few blocks away, and a pretty good chunk of change out of my household budget, but voila! I have a functioning fan in every room again.

They are much less obtrusive because the entire fan is off-white, cowl and blades, which blends into the popcorn style ceiling that is about 20 years old. It's really hard to clean that stuff, although I do try at least once a year, but there is no way that I'm going to ever afford to have it removed throughout the house and another ceiling finish done. No longer is the first thing anyone sees when entering the front door the huge gold cowled fan with the long, sweeping brown blades: the off-white almost disappears into the ceiling.

The fans all require a candelabra light bulb, which, of course, was not included, so I have some bulb-buying to do, but overall, I'm totally happy with the change.