I Electrocuted Myself Again… But New Bedroom Lighting!

In 2015 I bought new light fixtures at IKEA for the bedroom, which I installed in March 2015:

       

And for the girl cave which I installed in March 2016:

       

The chandelier thing that looks like an atom was cool looking but gave off hardly any light so I removed it in 2018.  Since then there’s just been a metal cover on the ceiling:

2 weeks ago I decided to switch things up and flip-flop the lighting in the girl cave and bedroom.  I made that decision a few months ago after realizing the lights in the bedroom were too bright and the lights in the girl cave weren’t bright enough.  I started by removing the 2 Tross LED track lights from the lower part of the bedroom ceiling [I’m leaving the 2 on the upper part of the bedroom ceiling].  Hubby had always maintained they were too bright and had removed a bulb from each one right after I installed them:

Then I removed the 2 Husinge LED ceiling track lights from the girl cave:

I started by installing a NEW Tross fixture, which I’d bought at IKEA this past spring, in preparation for the flip-flop.  Turns out I didn’t need to buy a 3rd, but I’ll get to that in a bit:

Just having a track light up there, pointing down at my work bench made a huge difference!

Then I moved into the bedroom and installed the first Husinge fixture [removed from the girl cave].  Thankfully this was an easy install because the ceiling is so low on that side of the bedroom.  I got to make use of my awesome Little Giant ladder and ladder bag, which is also my electrical “go” bag:

       

Once I got the first one up, I decided it needed to be twisted.  I had installed it square to the wall, but thought it would look much better angled so the pattern was more square:

       

Once I stepped back, I decided “wow, we really don’t even need the 2nd one…” so I re-installed the 2nd one back in the girl cave:

And then installed one of the Tross fixtures from the bedroom next to it:

       

The 2 Tross fixtures shine down on my workbench while the Husinge fixture is to the side – they make an amazing difference:

       

Then I went to Home Depot and bought a ceiling outlet cover.  Of COURSE it ended up being the wrong size – D’OH!

        

I covered the little sliver with white electrical tape [because spiders shudder]:

And ordered the correct size on Amazon [#affiliate], for WAY too much money, but I was desperate and wanted it asap.  The Home Depot I went to only had the size I bought, and I didn’t feel like going out looking for the right size.  The right sized one arrived 2 days later and I installed it and gave it a coat of ceiling paint and it looks awesome:

Now we move on to the electrocution part.  It was just dumb and I blame it on being tired from a day’s worth of electrical work.  Before finishing for the day, and since I had the ladder out,  I decided to finally replace the faceplate of the bedroom AC outlet, which had been cracked for months:

So I moved the ladder over and removed it.  Then realized the entire receptacle was cracked – WTF???  How does that even happen?  You can see a network of cracks in the center part [between the 2 badly painted outlets]:

I have replacement receptacles in the basement [eventually I want them all to be white not beige] so ran down to grab one.  Then made the stupid mistake of unscrewing the cracked one and grabbing each side to pull it away from the wall, without remembering that the AC is on a different circuit than the bedroom power.  I screamed like a girl in a horror movie when I got zapped.  Poor Birdie, who was sleeping peacefully on the bed, leaped to the floor and dove underneath.  Thankfully I didn’t fall off the ladder…  I just shook my hand out and took a break.  No burns or anything, just a numb hand and arm up to the elbow.  Thankfully Hubby wasn’t home or he would have had a minor heart attack…

Once I was recovered, I [obviously] went back down to the basement to turn off the power to the bedroom AC, then resumed my receptacle replacement:

       

Much better:

       

That’s the 2nd time I’ve electrocuted myself, and the first time was from grabbing the sides of an electrical receptacle as well.  DUMB!