Tim Dowling: at last I join the ranks of competent people

Illustration: Selman Hosgor/The GuardianView image in fullscreen Illustration: Selman Hosgor/The GuardianTim Dowling: at last I join the ranks of competent peopleIt’s not often I get the chance to admire my handiwork, but I have finally fixed a light switch

For a single strange moment, everything appears to be in hand: the garden is tidy and free of dead branches, thanks to Gardening Steve; the back door, which refused to close properly for most of the summer, has fixed itself in the cooler weather. I’ll take that as a win.

The bathtub’s clawed feet are sitting on two long planks, safely spreading its enormous load evenly across the squishy, sinking bathroom floor. There are, theoretically, further repairs to be undertaken here, but I’ve reached an age where I’ve had to make sharp adjustments to my idea of what constitutes a permanent solution. If nothing else happens, this will do.

The kitchen table has been sanded down and refinished, by me. At first the effect was a bit too orangey for my wife’s liking, but over the subsequent days the colour of the wood seemed to improve when contrasted with the prospect of doing the whole thing all over again.

As the nights draw in, only one real job remains: the kitchen’s three-button dimmer switch wall plate is broken – one of the main lights simply won’t come on.

“If you can find a like-for-like replacement for the switch plate, I can put it in,” I say, still more rashly.

“Shouldn’t I get an electrician?” she says.

My wife sources a new switch plate more quickly than I’d imagined possible. It arrives the next day. I open the box and consult the instructions.

“This product should be installed by a competent person,” I read.

“A qualified electrician is just one example of a competent person,” I say, “Other examples include chartered accountants, or the Lord Mayor.”

“It seems complicated,” my wife says, looking over my shoulder at the connection diagrams.

“Don’t worry, I’m ignoring all that,” I say. “I’m just going to take the old switch off the wall, and copy exactly what I find behind it.”

“I might not be here when that happens,” she says.

I begin work the next morning, after my wife leaves to walk the dog. I start by turning off the electricity for the entire house – you can’t be too careful. Then I unscrew the broken switch plate and gently pull it away from the wall.

A problem I had not foreseen arises: without any lights on, it’s hard to see what I’m doing – I have to shine my phone torch down on my work. At times, when the installation gets fiddly, I have to hold the phone between my teeth.

There are a lot more wires than I expected, but the new switch has the same basic arrangement as the old one. I don’t dare disconnect the old switch plate completely, because the wires aren’t labelled. Instead I undo each wire individually, immediately connecting it to the corresponding contact on the new switch plate. It’s exciting doing it this way – I feel as if I’m trying to bypass an alarm so I can rob a museum.

But it’s also frustrating. The wires are trimmed short, and the connecting screws are tiny. There’s no room to work. At the point when I have both the old and new plates hanging out of the wall, each half connected, my concentration falters: what am I doing? I bite down hard on my phone, and continue.

Finally, the time comes to turn the electricity back on. Gritting my teeth, I flip the switch.

“I wasn’t expecting this,” my wife says, rolling the leftmost button clockwise and watching the light over the kitchen table intensify. “I thought I’d find you sitting on the floor crying.”

“At one point I got into a panic and had to pause for half an hour,” I say, “to educate myself about the difference between leading edge and trailing edge dimmers.”

“Which is?” she says, rolling the button back.

“Leading edge dimmers are cheap and cause problems with LED bulbs,” I say. “Trailing edge, or reverse phase dimmers, are the best choice for most premises.”

“Ours can switch from one to the other,” I say, “but trailing edge is the default setting.”

“So I didn’t really need to hear any of that, did I?” she says.

“I learned it,” I say, “so it’s gotta come out somewhere.”

“Anyway, it’s very satisfying,” she says, moving to the next button along.

It’s more than satisfying for me. When I turn the kitchen lights on my heart skips a beat, every time.