Let There Be Deck Lights

Photo of Deck From Online Listing (Arrow Added)

When I bought my house, one of the main features that I loved was the deck.  It was enormous (to me at least).  I had never lived in a house with a deck so I was pretty psyched about the prospect of a nice outdoor entertaining space. One of the cool features of the deck was that there were two lights built into it on the railing.  They weren’t super cool lights but that didn’t matter, a light was a light. 

I went ahead and put an offer in on the house, we negotiated, and made a deal.  I moved onto the inspection stage where quite a long list of items were flagged. I was overwhelmed with the amount of work required and ended up walking away from the contract.  The sellers came back (I like to imagine in a panic, because of course, I was in control of the situation) and essentially said we will fix everything, just buy it. I said okay but you need to give me a new electrical box. They agreed and the rest is history. 

I moved into the house, excited about my first home with millions of projects to tackle. One of the first things I purchased was an outdoor table and chairs because of my deck excitement. However, I was sorely disappointed when I tried to turn the deck lights on with no luck. I tried changing the lightbulbs and that didn’t work. I then thought maybe I should check the wires.  At some point, and I’m not sure if it was when they were fixing one of the electrical issues or if it was when they replaced the electrical box, but the electrical line for those lights was cut off. I was bummed but still happy with the deck so I just overlooked it, assuming at some point we would just remove the lights.

Fast forward 4 years of living in the house. We are in the middle of a bathroom remodel (more on this project in a later post) and needed to get a bunch of electrical things moved/added.  When the electrician came to provide the quote, my husband also asked him to check an outlet on our deck that was also non-functional. He said he would look into it.

Today, while I was at work the electrician came and did all of the fun work we requested.  I pulled my car around back, got out of my car and looked at the deck.  To my shock and complete and utter elation, the deck lights were on. I mean I think I almost teared up. After 3 years of thinking (for some reason) that there would be no salvaging these things, they were on! Apparently, when the electrician fixed the outdoor outlet this also fixed the deck lights.  What an amazing surprise! I think I need to plan a party. J