30 Minute Fix For A Dark Basement Corner

We have always had a very dark corner in our basement:

It’s the long hall between Kathy’s cage and our 2nd sump pump hole.  I don’t need to go down the hallway often, but lately I have for a few reasons [like when the basement flooded], and I’ve had to bring a work light with me.  So last weekend I went to Home Depot and bought a 4′ LED shop light for $35.  It took me forever to find one that plugged in versus one I’d need to hardwire.  Hardwiring is always my preference, but since I’m putting a light in a place that was never wired for one, I opted for the plug-in solution.  Here’s the light after I took it out of the box:

It attaches to the ceiling with 2 chains.  My Dad had a shop light on chains when I was growing up and I’ve always wanted one!  I don’t know why – I just love the way the chains look.  I measured the distance between the 2 chain hooks and it came to 44″:

        

I headed down to the basement with a step stool.  I picked out the beam I planned to hang the light from and used a grease pencil to mark holes 44″ apart.  I drilled pilot holes then screwed in black eye hooks:

However, once I hung the light up, I realized the right end was resting on the storage shelf – D’OH!:

I needed to shorten the chains and hook them onto themselves, but I couldn’t do that with the eye hooks.  I switched to regular screw hooks and was able to loop the chain and attach it to itself so they were shortened by a few inches:

        

I made sure the light was level:

Then plugged it in with the help of a 25′ orange extension cord I’d also bought at Home Depot.  It worked great!  So much awesome bright light 🙂  And it has a handy pull chain on the left that will make it easy for Kathy and I to turn it on when we need more light in that area:

I used more screw hooks to secure the extension cord along the upper wall & around the corner to where the outlet is:

       

I coiled the excess cord and attached it to Roger’s cage with a zip tie to keep it out of the way:

It is amazing to have light in that section of the basement.  It’s always been SO DARK:

Here’s a BEFORE & AFTER:

       

Woohoo!  I thought it would take me 10 minutes but it took about 30… but that’s not bad at all for such a huge improvement 🙂

In cat news, Birdie has discovered “cat TV”.  I did a Google search for “Birds for Cats” last weekend and found an awesome series of videos on YouTube by Paul Dinning, a wildlife videographer from Cornwall, England.  His videos last anywhere from a few minutes to 8 hours!  Birdie first experienced them on my laptop and was instantly hooked:

        

Then Jim played a video on his iPad and set it up on the floor for her.  She was fascinated.  She kept running around to the back to see where the birds flew off to:

        

It has gotten to the point where I can barely use my laptop.  Whenever I turn it on she jumps up next to me and stares at the screen [like she’s doing RIGHT NOW], waiting for the birds to show up:

        

Jim and I have also become hooked on these videos.  They are supremely relaxing and quite beautiful.  The scenery, the nature sounds… it’s all wonderful.  So we’ve started watching it on our TV via our ROKU and Birdie is just as fascinated [this pic reminds me of MST3K]:

But she definitely prefers the laptop where the birds are life sized instead of dog sized:

       

We love it!  Jim’s Auntie Alice visited us last weekend so she got to experience Birdie’s bird addiction first hand.  We love you, Auntie!