Hanging the Living Room Fan

It took a couple of days to figure out the pieces to hang the fan. It is a large heavy one that I bought for $20 from a Craigslist ad. It is a Monte Carlo Great Lodge Fan with a fake antler light fixture which goes perfectly with the log cabin type of decor.
I had stored the fan in the garage and close at hand with all its parts nearby. Except at some point I moved the fan blades and an exhaustive search today did not turn them up. So the fan looks a bit funny without its blades.

We should find them at some point but I was hoping to be able to use the fan to help cool the living room. I downloaded the instructions to hang it and I had a difficult time actually following them. I think it was the photos. They were not very clear to me without an overview of the parts fitting together.

I also looked at other instructions for hanging a ceiling fan from a cathedral ceiling and found that the opening for the ball should point to the high side of the ceiling. Makes sense but I may not have thought of it. It is a heavy fan and the electricians put in boxes that were ceiling fan rated. I had help lifting it into place.
I took the fan extension pole apart and put it back together many times. I wasn’t sure the yoke and the cover would work on a cathedral ceiling so I left off the yoke and then realized it was needed.
The same was true for the light fixture. I had to put it together from pieces and found that some were bent and I had to pound them a bit to get them together. Again the instructions were not very helpful as they only showed how to pass the wires through the switch housing, not how the entire light was assembled.

But it was not too difficult to figure out how to wire the four lights to the actual switch inside the shaft and to bolt it together properly.
I also installed the two family room bathroom sconce lights. These were originally from our Tempe house. I changed them out for two stained glass lights and then gave these to my daughter thinking they might be able to change the outside lights on their new house. But they needed four matching lights so they gave them back to me. These have a rustic style so I’m glad I had them.

It seems that every step is more difficult than it needs to be. In the case of the sconces, the boxes were behind the drywall and they were mounted between the studs with extension bars. These allowed the boxes to rock back and forth. I tried using longer filial screws and they were too long, in fact tightening the filial pushed the screw back into the box and it hit the ground post and burst the mounting plate right out of the electrical box! So everything came out and I started again. I finally had to screw the mounting plate in not quite all the way to have the shorter filial screw come through the base so I could fit the filial on the light to hold it against the wall. The final installation was tight enough but it was not easy task getting there.
I have some very low wattage LED bulbs in the sconces. These were the first LED bulbs that I bought way back in 2005. They were very expensive too. Over $200 for 12 regular bulbs and 12 nightlight bulbs. They are an almost blue white in color. But the low wattage limits where I can use them. I used some of the nightlights in the ceiling fan fixture and they are only 7 watts but they were the only candelabra bulbs I had. I’ll replace them with brighter LED’s.