Pendant Lamps

You wouldn't really think that pendant lamps would be an issue to fight about, but in my house, you'd be wrong. It was shaping up to be a really nice Saturday morning until I picked up the latest issue of Ready Made magazine. Well, the light section discusses how to make a pendant light and this is where it all begins to go south. I see the pendant light cord that they show with a two blade plug on the end of it and say, "Hey, we could just clip that plug off and tie it into the wall fixture that's vacant".

It gets ugly here. Evidently the wife has done some extensive and time consuming research out there on the interwebs and found that you void the UL stuff by doing that and is completely, and rather ferociously against it ....and against me all of the sudden for even having the nerve to suggest it. Well, we live in a 1960s house that was a rental for a llllllllong time. The furnace fan runs on an extension cord with electrical tape and all of the outlets have 3-wire fixtures even though the whole house is still just two-wire. I guess having these is the limit for her UL voiding level of comfort. I eventually got told that someday "in my house" that I could have whatever I wanted.

After a half-hour of searching, I found a place that sells 18/3 shielded wire for pendant lighting and they probably have the fixtures for the bulb as well as the cover place and stress relief pieces for attaching it to the wall. Man, I really just wish that whoever built this tiny house had put in cieling fixtures instead of wiring things to the sides of the walls.

The wife just piled the baby into the car and left the house in a huff with a slam of the door. Ahhhh...Saturday.