Got Gas?

One of the realities of living in a structure built in 1887 is that whenever your repair or replace something it always turns out to be a bit more complex than you expected. Case in point is the "new" light fixture that my contractor Francisco put in today. This is a project that originated almost a year ago when my sister sent me a gift card at Home Depot. I held onto through Christmas when she sent me another gift card that more than paid for the fixture that I bought a couple of months ago. How hard could it be to install, I thought, having enough electrical intelligence to know the difference between positive, negative and grounding wires. Well, it was more complex than I thought when I tried to install it. "Uh, I think we may have a problem," Francisco announced a few minutes into the project. "That's a gas line there." Okay, not that complex for him by extending the base a couple of inches. Now having it in place, I can't help but wonder if the original fixture from the century before last looked all that different.