How to hang a chandelier.....

You lovely readers of my blog clearly enjoy reading about our house and the effort it takes (and took) to make it into our home. So I thought I'd publish my first publication for this Brinkbeestinenglish-blog again. I still think it's a funny story and most of you have probably missed it. How to hang a chandelier We finally found the light. We had been searching for years and suddenly there it was. You always find things when you give up looking for them. Well maybe not always. Often though. It was hanging over a dining table in a shop where we were looking for pillows for our garden furniture (which is also a good story, maybe later) and was exactly the modern chandelier that we wanted for our librabry. Which sounds very posh, but really isn't. No really. Anyway, this room with bookcases has a ceilingheight of about 4,50 meters. And in this room a winding staircase leads to a landing that is open on two sides. You can look down into our library on one side and on the other side you can look down into our entrance hall. Can you picture it? There probably is a better way of describing it, but I can't think of it so this will have to do. Maybe all becomes clear(er). This very hip chandelier was going to be our light in the darkness of our library. We went to our favorite supplier of exciting devices and machinery and rented scaffolding. I suffer from a mild case of vertigo, so you will never find me up there, but hubs doesn't mind. Or so he says. After two glasses of wine, to build up his courage, although he denies that of course, we went upstairs and put the kitchensteps on the landing so that he could climb over the balustrade onto the scaffolding, defying death in doing so. A little bit weak in the knees I was holding the kitchensteps steady. "Oh well", hubs said, "the most difficult thing of this whole operation is probably inserting the 48 halogen lights." By the way, hubs has the necessary certificates for working with electric stuff (although he took these exams a long, long and even longer time ago). So we can assume that he knows what he is doing. Or can we? In all the DIY-programmes you are instructed to take out the fuses, but hubs almost never does that. "If the lights are out, there is no current." So I was under strict instructions: "Hold the kitchensteps steady and don't lean against the lightswitches." "Are you not scared at this height on top of the scaffolding?", I asked. "Not at all", said hubs. "Don't worry. My head is firmly jammed against the ceiling." "So there will be a greasy stain next to our beautiful chandelier", I mentioned, always the practical one. Which comment was not received very well. As I explained (or tried to); from the landing you can see the library on one side and the entrance hall on the other side. It was late in the afternoon, getting dark, so hubs switched on the lights in the entrance hall in order to see what he was doing. These lights are on another switch, so that he could do that safely. He said. Good idea by the way, to install a light when it is allready getting dark, but hubs does not appreciate remarks like that at such moments. While I was admiring hubs's courage and technical ability, the lights in the hall started flickering. I mentioned that to him. "Not interested!", he replied, strenuously trying to do something difficult with wires and electricity whilst standing in the twilight on top of unstable scaffolding and therefore not very interested in light conversation. Until he cut through a wire and suddenly all the lights went out. Very surprised hubs stood on top of the scaffolding. "I told you that the lights were flickering!", I said a bit upset. "And I did not touch the lightswitches!" "Well, now I have to take out the fuses", hubs grumbled and defied death again, climbing onto the landing. During the renovation of our home extra wooden supports were put into the ceiling because we already knew we wanted some sort of big chandelier. But that was two years ago. We knew where these supports were then, but now...... Well, we had to guess. It was a heavy lightfitting with a transformer which had to be suspended from four chains hanging from four hooks in the ceiling. Hubs screwed the first hook into the ceiling, guessing where a wooden support should be, and went on to screw the other three into the ceiling. Looked good! He attached the chains and the transformer to these four hooks. Still looked good! And while we were admiring his handywork so far, hook nr. 1 fell out of the ceiling. So the next day we had to go and buy special screwplugthings (I'm sorry, really don't know the correct word) for plasterboard. And hubs, fortunately well insured, had to be brave again and with my mental support he finally succeeded in hanging our beautiful chandelier in the library. Wow! It really looked good. We took down the scaffolding and made a cup of coffee. The doorbell rang. It was a very good friend of ours with a good nose for coffee I think. We proudly showed our new acquisition. "Wow", she admired it. "Beautiful. But I think it is a bit high up. It should be hanging a bit lower." She was right. So hubs sighed deeply, put up the scaffolding again........ This was over a year ago and the chandelier is still hanging, somewhat lower, proudly in our library. We can see what we read!