House Decency - part 6

Since we had some electrical items on our to-do list, we had to turn off the electricity to the house. So we figured we might as well do all the electrical things at once (and during daylight hours for heat and light reasons) so that we only had to deal with the lack of power once. We rely on our modem for internet for music and entertainment. And to power our landline (cordless phones). And to power our coffeemaker.

1. The bathrooms were the only rooms left that did not have rocker switches and screwless outlet faceplates installed to match those throughout the house.

Before

After

2. The outlet in the kitchen in the granite was white. It was supposed to be temporary but we hadn't gotten around to purchasing the black GFCi outlet, even though we special ordered the ebony screwless faceplate. I don't have a before pic but here's the after:

That was supposed to be it on our list of electrical things to do. However in doing the guest bath upstairs we rewired wrong and it ended up controlling the garage's electrical work. And then in fixing that, we blew a circuit. We left our house in a very vulnerable state in search of replacement - with the garage door wide open, new motorcycle exposed, dog with broken leg at home uncrated, but we did leave the main breakers off.

Luckily the hardware store is only a few miles away and our favorite staff member (Jason) was working that day. And he knew electrical. And us. And the dogs. And the dogs love him. And I like to think we get special treatment. So we replaced the breaker and after a couple unplanned additional hours, we finally were able to scratch electrical off our list. BTW, circuit breakers are expensive! Those are the things they keep locked up in cases.


Plus it's annoying to reset all the clocks on the microwave, range, and clock radio, and coffeemaker*.

*Have you noticed that we are a household run by coffee? More specifically caffeine, because we use our electric kettle for tea as well. We are equal opportunity caffeine addicts.

Light Years Away

A while back we installed new outdoor light fixtures on our back patio. Here is the before* which were original to the house which was built in 1973 (that's 36 years ago!):


And here is the after:

We also installed dimmer switches for some nice ambient control. We picked these lamps up from Home Depot for a steal, and it looks way more modern than the previous ones. They're easy to install, just like any other light fixture.

Does it take at least 30 years off our home's age?

*These are actually our neighbor's light fixtures. I never snapped a pic of our old ones but they were exactly identical. You can tell that these are our neighbor's by the creeping fig remains.

Electric Feel

After changing out the last of the light switches downstairs, I learned the hard way about 3 way switches (usually found in a hallway or stairway where switches in 2 locations control the same source). I had a slight feeling that the single pole switches may not work but thought I'd give it a try. What's the worst that can happen, I blow the switch? Blow a circuit? Shock myself? Burn the house down?
Rest assured, none of those things occurred. Although to be honest, I was a little scared to turn the breaker back on (I remained outside with the dogs for a good 10 minutes after turning power back on with my cell phone in hand ready to call the fire dept). And while power was off, internet was off. At this time I called Jesse at work to ask theoretically of course, what would happen if I left a live wire hanging? You know, just curious and all. Aren't you?


Well don't try it. I ended up putting a nut over it to cap it off. Anyway, after a trip to HD I got some 3 way switches to complete the job. And if you are just going by the pictures, it looks like I did it the easy way the first time.

Isn't that hot (in a non-live wire exposed kind of way)? Minimal with no screws in sight.

Timesaver: light switch electrical cables are 10 gauge, so they won't go into the little holes of the new switch, I tried for a long time. So you'll have to wrap them around the little screws and tighten (no shortcuts folks). Outlet wires on the other hand are 14 gauge, so those will. When dealing with electrical, make sure all connections are tight as can be, safety first!

Sidenote: the name of this post is homage to MGMT. Recommended music for house work when you are jacked up on caffeine. Try it.

Last Call

This morning I sealed off the last hole in our wall (the old phone jack). And I'll show you how to as well:

First, leave the phone off the hook. Why? Well since you asked, there is a little tiny bit of electricity running through the telephone wires which is no biggie, but if the phone rings then you might get a shocker. Since turning off the breakers won't do anything, I believe this is your only choice. If not, it's got to be the easiest.

Second, separate and strip the wires so that they are nice and tidy. I've got 8 wires, for 2 phone lines. We're only going to use 1 line so I'm going to seal off the extra wires.

Tip: phone wires are 20 gauge, so use the tiniest notch in your wire strippers. Hopefully that saved you some time. Like 7 seconds.

Second, screw the mounting bracket into the outlet junction box for the faceplate (keep in mind how you want the faceplate to be positioned, you probably don't want that on crooked):

Next, hook up your wires. They are color-coded for your wiring convenience.

Lastly, mount the face plate and test the sucker out. That's right hang up the other phone, plug it into your nifty new jack and pick up the phone. Dial tone = success. Silence = fail. And you'll only have yourself to blame.


Congrats, you probably saved yourself some money.

Let there be (better) light

We purchased our house with the intention of doing a kitchen remodel (DIY of course). Most everything in this small U-shaped kitchen appeared to be original to the house from 1973. It also has a low ceiling due to the soffit, which houses 2 dated, yellowing acrylic panels over 3 fluorescent lights.

We loathed that sterile lighting, so we inverted the soffit, and installed recessed lights with dimmers. While we were at it, we added 3 more lights in the outer soffit area to go over the bar counter that we are planning. We ran into some snafus but we documented the process here.