Electrical
Thanksgiving Schmanksgiving
Dec/02/08 08:14 AM
It's the
season when the "Bah Humbug" begins to rear it's ugly
mug. Yep right around Thanksgiving. You know the
holiday in which we thank the Native Americans for
welcoming us to the new world, right before we stole
all their land and forced them onto reservations.
Kristin and I opted out of Thanksgiving this year. In
all actuality it had nothing to do with some
political view of Thanksgiving, nope, actually we
love Thanksgiving (maybe a little too much for our
own good). But, how often do you get a four-day
weekend to work on the house. That's right we blew
our whole holiday on the house. We still did the
turkey breast in the oven, but wow, did we make
hella-progress on the house.
This Thanksgiving:
1. We laid in bed almost the whole first day.
2. Installed the vent hood above the stove.
3. Rewired the wall behind the stove to fit the stove height.
4. Painted the remaining cabinet doors.
5. Installed said cabinet doors.
6. Installed the bathroom cabinets.
7. Mixed and readied our staining station for our interior doors.
This Thanksgiving:
1. We laid in bed almost the whole first day.
2. Installed the vent hood above the stove.
3. Rewired the wall behind the stove to fit the stove height.
4. Painted the remaining cabinet doors.
5. Installed said cabinet doors.
6. Installed the bathroom cabinets.
7. Mixed and readied our staining station for our interior doors.
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We Have Power... In The House
May/14/08 08:55 AM
As of yesterday the electric company has restored
power to the house! Albeit we only have one GFI
outlet that works and no lights, but HEY! at least
it’s not extension cords plugged into a temporary
pole outside.
This is the first time we’ve had power restored to the house since the electrical fire incident. I came home yesterday and eagerly fed the extension cords back through the windows and and plugged them into the lonesome little outlet in the kitchen... and it worked! Yes I was a little surprised, but that is another story. I was so excited I had to call someone, hmmm, I know I’ll call the electrician. Unfortunately my excitement was lost on him, because apparently he sees this sort of thing all the time. But anyway he said he’d be out next week to hook up the outlets and switches.
We needed a bunch of cheap fixtures to install so that we can pass inspection and move in by the 1st of June, so a trip to the Habitat store and a grab-bag-box of brass fixtures for ten bucks and that’ll about do it. Ten fixtures for 10 bucks! That’s better than the cheap plastic ones at the supply store, although they are tacky-as-hell-brass. I think they’ll make good conversation pieces until the Rejuves arrive. Geesh, I wish the Habitat store was open every day.
This is the first time we’ve had power restored to the house since the electrical fire incident. I came home yesterday and eagerly fed the extension cords back through the windows and and plugged them into the lonesome little outlet in the kitchen... and it worked! Yes I was a little surprised, but that is another story. I was so excited I had to call someone, hmmm, I know I’ll call the electrician. Unfortunately my excitement was lost on him, because apparently he sees this sort of thing all the time. But anyway he said he’d be out next week to hook up the outlets and switches.
We needed a bunch of cheap fixtures to install so that we can pass inspection and move in by the 1st of June, so a trip to the Habitat store and a grab-bag-box of brass fixtures for ten bucks and that’ll about do it. Ten fixtures for 10 bucks! That’s better than the cheap plastic ones at the supply store, although they are tacky-as-hell-brass. I think they’ll make good conversation pieces until the Rejuves arrive. Geesh, I wish the Habitat store was open every day.
Electrical Rough-In Complete
Feb/21/08 08:11 AM
After much worry, we have finally convinced our electrician to finish the rough in for inspection today. Kristin and I toured the house this morning and decided that we need to postpone the inspection due to the fact that the electrician has “forgotten” to wire a couple of key boxes. That and the fact that the house is a literal disaster area, that being mostly due to us.
But honestly our biggest problem that we ran into was that the recessed lights on the front porch were spec’d to be centered length-wise, and as it turned out there was a ceiling joist that forced us to put the lights to one side or the other. However, it seems ok with us in their location.
Our goal now is to have the initial inspection by Monday, put the insulation in next weekend and have that inspected on the following Monday and then we can drywall the following week. And then we move in the following week after that? Is that right? We would love to be further along, but quite frankly, money is getting tight and paying double mortgage is killing our budget. So now we are putting our other bungalow up for rent this week. And I guess we will move in amongst the construction for the finishing phases. Maybe that will give us more incentive to work harder and get it done faster... I hope.
Electric Step-Up
Feb/07/08 08:06 AM
We’ve started the installation of our electric, and Shawn at Davis Electric is performing the install. At first we had some issues with him showing up and disappearing for a week or so then magically reappearing when we started to get frustrated. And for a while it seemed as if he was working about an hour day every-other day. I’d expressed to my architect about our concern and he replied “Well, did you expect something different?” Then it occurred to me that I never gave him a deadline, that in fact I may have told him that we weren’t in any big hurry. This reminds me of myself many in ways, because being an artist, I know that one thing you don’t tell an artist is that you aren’t in any big hurry.
My brother-in-law asked me for a T-shirt design for his volunteer fire department, and he told me that he “wasn’t in any big hurry for it,” and that was about six months ago and I’ve yet to do it.
Since this realization I’ve led the electrician to believe that we are in a crunch, which in all actuality WE ARE. With less than a month to go we have to get to a move-in condition or we will be stuck with paying double mortgage. So now the crunch is on...