Airflow is a Wonderful Thing

Today is dreary and overcast, and we got down to 61 degrees last night. Days like this only come about a few times a year, and I am usually out of town when they happen. I love weather like this! Just a few days ago, I was complaining about the heat in our bedroom.  With the windows open and all the fans in the house going full-speed, it meant a lovely night of sleeping in a cool house last night.

This guy certainly helped. Meet our new bedroom ceiling fan, Gus.

Usually, when we wander the aisles of Home Depot, all I hear from Hubby is that awful word, “No.” Sometimes he follows it up with something supposedly to make me feel better, like “We don’t need that,” or “We don’t need a front porch bistro set because we don’t use the furniture we have in the backyard.”

In my defense, I would love to be outside more often. I’m not blaming anyone here, but we need to face the facts, folks. My husband is made up of 100% mosquito food, and he can’t be outside for more than a minute on any evening before he has thirty bites all over him. They don’t bother me in the least. I am going to attribute being outside 24/7 as a kid. I’m just sayin’…the reason we aren’t outside enough (“using our outdoor furniture”) is because the mosquitos like him. It feels awkward to leave him behind protected walls while I head outside to enjoy the evening. However, if it will help him realize that our outdoor furniture is necessary, I will do it. Team player, remember?

Anyway, on a recent trip to Home Depot, and while preparing myself for that awful word, “No,” I steered Hubby down the ceiling fan aisle.

Here was my reasoning. Our bedroom ceiling fan is builders-grade and certainly does us no favors. When I researched it once, I found it to be around 2,700 CFMs, which is how they measure fan circulation. While perusing the fourteen-thousand options in the fan aisle in Home Depot, we were able to find a white ceiling fan-and-light combination with a CFM of 5,486. Heck, yes. I’m all about double.

My further trick tool to convince Hubby that this might be a pretty good idea was that one of the dining room ceiling fans went kaput late last year. We didn’t care too much since we were coming into the cooler winter months. However, with temperatures already in the triple digits, we need all the air circulation going on that we can muster. So I suggested that we get a new, higher-power fan for our bedroom and use that old fan to replace the broken one in the dining room.

I crouched behind some chandelier boxes, waiting to be told that awful word that makes me cringe. I closed my eyes and started to rock back and forth while humming. For some unknown reason, it caught quite the stares from other Home Depot patrons.

But he agreed. To my great astonishment. We looked at fans together and compared the best options. And then we put one in our cart and brought it home. I guess it helped that the day’s temperature was a record-breaking one-hundred and five.

While I was at work on Monday, Hubby surprised me with installing the new fan in our bedroom. Oh sweet, sweet Gus. You are awesome. And I can actually feel your airflow! You’ve helped us sleep better the past few nights. Bless you.

Maybe tonight we can swap out the old broken dining room fan for the old bedroom fan. Airflow moving on that side of the house is critical in keeping this place habitable. It’s amazing how hot it has gotten already! Gus is helping in every way he can, and that makes me very, very happy.

Home Depot victories like these are rare indeed and need to be fully savored.