Guide to Installing a Dimmer

All of this talk about renting versus buying has given me reason to reflect on all of the things I have convinced my landlords to do for me in the past. Because, this weekend, I managed to install a new light dimmer all by myself (with Rita's help). And I only became so enraged that I started yelling at the wall once. Once!

A little background. I have a gift for massaging my landlords into doing really extravagant things for me, in the name of "investing in their rental property". In the past I have successfully negotiated a garbage disposal (to replace the one we broke by mincing an entire head of celery (just to see if we could)), a washing machine and very nearly a dryer (it was the lack of a modern fuse box that scuttled the dryer), the removal of two walls, and most famously the air conditioning in Perth. I like to think that that's famous, anyways. My success stems from my not being an ass-bag to my landlord and to my neighbors. Also from my offers of boughatsa.

But now that I am a Mortgage Owner, things have changed. I must install these things myself using nothing but my tools, my engineering degree, the internet, a cache of swear words, my wife, and her ever-guiding patience for things I have no patience for. This weekend we decided to install a dimmer in the kitchen, because I find the light fixture there offensively bright on a deeply personal level. I feel like I'm standing in a film negative when I try to cook with the light on. Everything that shouldn't be bright is too bright, and everything that I want to see is pitch black because I can't slice chicken sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor Rita. I can't, and I won't.

So you can see, this dimmer will play a crucially important role in my life. Here is my Guide to Installing a Dimmer.

Step 1: Scrutinize every single dimmer at Lowe's.
This is my least favorite part of doing anything for the home because it requires you to have a level of expertise far greater than anyone can have (period). I feel like I could waste hours of my life comparing garden trowels. Dimmers are even harder. You have to know what sort of bulb you are going to dim (answer: not what you think you have), the power "wattage", the configuration of faceplates, the type of white you have selected and whether it matches the faceplate, if your wife will also like it, the area code in Singapore, if you are going to break the one you have chosen because it's going in the kitchen, and if it is susceptible to raw chicken contamination. I always play with the light switch when I have raw meat on my hands. Helpful advice: don't bring your partner, because then two people will shave hours off their weekend instead of one. But you will also inevitably make a return trip because of this decision. The deciding formula is a function of "partner decisiveness" and "proximity to store".

Step 2: Figure out the wires.
Take your new dimmer and go home. Assume that you can remove the faceplate, replace the existing switch with the dimmer, and replace the faceplate with the one you have chosen. Upon removing the existing switch you will realize that (if you are lucky) there are two wires, and that you don't know which wire is which. While I started reading my Home Encyclopedias, Rita went on the internet and found an abundance of Generic Useless Diagrams for figuring out the wiring. Try to find a diagram that is convincing enough that you think you know which wire is which, and go with that. Ignore the grounding wire, because those are invariably non-existent in your house. Helpful advice: do not presume that you can install a 3-way switch. That is pure folly.

Step 3: Start cussin'.
Here is where it got hairy for us: stuffing the dimmer back into the wall. As it turns out, the dimmer is far larger than the original 1960's light switch. It is far larger than my iPhone, and yet it cannot store 8 million songs and help me navigate through traffic. Nevermind. It goes in the wall now. Grab your needle-nose plyers, a nail, a small screwdriver, a metal file, and whatever else should absolutely never be poked into a power outlet, and try to manipulate the wiring behind the new dimmer. I'll wait. Now, it won't fit because there are little screws poking out of the wiring box for no reason, and those are getting in the way of the Massive Dimmer Housing. Ask your partner to use her smaller fingers to sort of twist those screws until they no longer extend into the way of your new dimmer. Swear. Use the screwdriver to sort of crowbar the dimmer into the wall. If you crack the tiling, swear freely. Acknowledge that the mounting bracket on the dimmer is larger than the existing wiring box, and understand that you will now have a sloping non-flush faceplate. Move on. It's in the past. Loosen the adjacent power outlet so that it pokes out of the wall enough to at least be flush with your distending faceplate. Search your whole house for an hour for two nuts that can serve as spacers. Only find one. Swear profoundly.

Step 4: Admire your work.
You suck.