Replacing the Living Room Ceiling Fan
After our final round of trim and window painting, it was pretty easy to see what was left in here that was original! Can you guess in the photo below? The fan of course! :) You know what that means... another junior electrician project to replace the ceiling fan!
Like in many of the other rooms of the house, the fan was oversized for the space, hanging down too low and generally was an eyesore. Beyond aesthetics, this fan had problems. The chain was missing to be able to control the speed of the fan, so we only got to run it on low. I tried to fix just that early on after moving in but that was way above my junior electrician pay grade so I opted to just leave it be.
So, with the freshly painted floor and window trim, there was one piece left to fix in here - and I started the hunt for a new fan. I scoured Pinterest and the Instagram feeds of some of my favorite home builders and remodelers, and ultimately landed on black or white - because, what else do you think I was going to say?!
There are some really nice black fans out there, but since the ceilings aren't very high in here, I felt like a black fan would draw attention to itself while a white fan might blend in. So to keep rolling with the theme of my current home fixes, we went WHITE and found this fan at our local Home Depot.
I learned during my first ceiling fan installation project in the master bedroom that while these new LED ceiling fans without chains are clean and modern looking, they come with remotes that need a home. This one included a wall remote holder which was nice to see. So, after landing on this model, I flipped the breaker to kill power to this room and got to work.
Except... I encountered a major issue. The primary screw to take down the existing fan was already stripped, so I couldn't get it down! I've never tried harder to REMOVE something than this and was near exhaustion and frustration doing so with my arms above my head the whole time. Short of literally hanging on it to rip it down, I finally decided to start bending and twisting the side you're not supposed to mess with and it started to budge.
Taking this down took longer and more work than the rest of the install combined, and I was pissed. But, like most things in life that are hard to overcome, it felt great when I finally got it down (and didn't cause more problems (or holes in the ceiling) along the way).
Finally down, the install process was quite easy. The fan came wit an accompanying video to follow along with and didn't take much time at all. After following all steps, we had a new clean white fan!
I love that this fan has less height and doesn't hang down so much, but being white it blends in drawing your eye into the room and not at the fan. While a ceiling fan is not the most beautiful lighting fixture on the market, it's functional and necessary with our Iowa summers.
The remote and holder is quite huge and ugly for how sleek of a fan this is, but I screwed it into the wall near the outlet for convenience and figured there was not much we could do about that.
All in all, our forever home living room finally feels pretty dang fixed!!
Except... our stick-on fireplace tile is starting to show some discoloration. It's lasted a year after our quick and easy fireplace update, and I wasn't expecting to keep it much lot longer, but I'm already eyeing that as my next project in here. Oh well... #housedonemandead
Need a fix-up? Here's what we used:
Home Decorators Collection White 52" Ceiling Fan - Home Depot
