Tired of listening to her husband’s hot-air promises to replace an existing ceiling fan in their office, DIYer Kristin Bienert took matters into her own hands.

Kristin took down an existing ceiling fan in a never-used screened-in-back porch. “We had this beautiful Hunter Douglas fan on the porch that I thought would look great in our office,” she says.

Replacing an existing ceiling fan with a new model or in Kristin’s case, existing model, is a fairly simple project because the ceiling is already wired.

“I have absolutely no experience with electricity or wiring, but it was pretty easy to figure out,” she says.
If you’re moving an existing fan, here are some tips from Kristin:

• Turn off the power—at the fuse box—to the room you’re working in. Our fuse box was not labeled. After many trips up and down the stairs, I figured out which switches controlled each room. I then used a permanent marker to write this on the inside door of the box, for future reference.
• Remove the blades first; this makes the fan less cumbersome.
• All ceiling fans should have a safety catch installed; be prepared in case it doesn’t. I waded up a big beach towel and placed it on top of the ladder, so if the fan unit fell, it would (I hope) land on the towel.
• After recapping the wires (white to white, black to black) to the new fan, check to make sure the fan and lights work before reassembling the entire fixture. Yes, this means extra trips up and down the stairs to the fuse box, but it’s better to find out now if it works! It’s also very satisfying when you hear the whirl of the fan and see the lights!
• Clean all parts before reinstalling—especially the topside of the blades.
• Ask a friend to help support the weight of the fan, when reattaching it to the base. This can be done without any help (if you’re as determined as Kristin to prove a point to her hubbie) but is not advised.