It took a while, but I finally found a decent one, a bronze with dark faux wood blade fan that only measure 20 inches long. When it finally showed up, I took Jen's craft room chandelier down and got ready to put up the new fan. Which immediately revealed a big problem: the electrical box which the chandelier was attached to wasn't attached to a ceiling beam. Exactly how we weren't killed by a falling chandelier during the past couple years is a mystery to me. But wouldn't that have been one of the more eye-catching obituaries to read in this era? "Couple killed by falling chandelier."
I've never claimed to be a brave man, but I've done ok over the course of my life in certain situations. Crazy steroid man armed with pie-filled cooler? Check. Crawling around the rooftop to clean out clogged gutters? Shaky check. But going up into the attic to install a crossbeam for a ceiling fan? No freakin way. So I hired a coworker/handyman to get up there and do it for me. Am I proud? No, but I'm also typing this now, not trapped forever in the 2 foot crawlspace while Jen feeds me pudding through the hole in the ceiling.
Finally the day arrived for me to actually install the fan. It took about 3 hours of swearing, starting over, and shaky legs on a ladder. But it's up and it works. And I'll be damned if it isn't even louder than one of the old scary table fans. AGGHH! We're keeping our fingers crossed that replacing the dimmer switch on the wall with a regular switch will fix the problem. But at least Emmett will have a nice cooling breeze in his room... during this, the coldest summer in recent memory.