Saturday, November 7, 2009

it's electric

Another big project over the past few weeks: the electrical.

After ripping into the ceilings that first weekend we quickly realized our house needed some serious rewiring. There... under 3 layers...lie a maze of knob and tube. Now, for those of you like me- who never heard this term before, knob and tube is essentially the original method of wiring a house. Each wire is individually wrapped and separated from the other.

In lieu of the photos I never took- here is an internet stock photo that gives a good image of what we found running across our whole living room.















Not only were their safety issues with this type of wiring, but adam and I had an early vision of the electrical running along our exposed beams in stainless steel conduit. We also realized there was a serious shortage of outlets and the placement of light switches made no logical sense. Luckily we have some family expertise on the issue (thanks uncle jay), along with dad who is quite the capable electrician. Let the rewiring begin.

I didn't take very good pics along the way, but here are a couple where you can scout out just some of the dangling wires that hung everywhere for weeks. This was a serious job that the photos don't do justice.




















Here you can see a newly installed circuit box...
























the man himself, hard at work...




















And here, (difficult to capture) the conduit running along the beams and around the chimney in the background. The smaller black piping is actually the old gas line from when the house had gas lighting!




















Lastly- looking SO good and sleek, the living room's finished switch boxes.


dirty work

Introducing, my most favorite tool: shop vac.

I love the shop vac. While I've used it before... i've never REALLY used it before. I mean... this vacuum can pick up a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g. well. Hunks of drywall, nails, not to mention dirt. WAY better than a standard vacuum cleaner. Why don't they make all vacuums like a portable, upright shop vac?














needless to say, shop vac has been instrumental in this process. Particularly MY role in the process. I am the cleaner. the boys make the mess and the girls clean up.

















Amazingly we have TWO. one is borrowed and one is ours. Between the two (and the two cleaners- mom and I), no debris stays put too long.

Luckily we've had some helpers along the way. Huge thanks! Though I should note- Justin and Steve were not relegated to dirty tasks (see next post on the electrical).















Mom's help has extended well beyond the dirty work and into keeping me up on school work. Together we've graded hundreds of papers and remain on call for hardware, food, and other such important tasks.


















speaking of... Another big milestone hit today- ALL DEBRIS IS GONE! We broke down and hired (a first!!) a guy to haul away all remaining trash for $60. An absolute bargain that no one regrets.