I had to install smoke/carbon monoxide detectors near each bedroom in the house to be able to pass inspection; as long as I had the stepladder out, I thought I’d upgrade the incandescent light bulbs in a couple of ceiling-mounted fixtures to LED (the bulbs had been there since the electricians installed the fixtures 10 years ago).
The only way I could see to remove the shade was to unscrew the screws in the recessed holes you can see in the photo above. And naturally, I dropped one of the screws and couldn’t find it. But I was able to take everything apart and replace the bulbs.
I took the remaining two screws to my nearest hardware store, Los Gatos Ace Hardware, to get a replacement. But they didn’t have it (it apparently is an odd size); the salesperson, Zach, told me he could use a tap and die set to change the hole in the fixture so I could use a normal machine screw, but he couldn’t do it until today.
We did laundry this morning and Diane found the missing screw in the lint filter, so I decided to try to put things back together myself. I couldn’t figure out how to reassemble everything – back to Ace and Zach.
He spent 15 minutes reassembling the shade – for free. And I discovered what I should have done in the first place – all I needed to do was use my finger to loosen the finials on each of the clamps holding the rings together and the shade would come down easily.
I also discovered that I’d made a mistake by buying non-dimmable LED bulbs and putting them on a fixture controlled by a dimmer switch. I thought about changing out the switch and decided it was much easier to buy dimmable bulbs (which I did get at Ace, of course).
I guess I’m not completely out of the Covid brain fog. :-)
