Thumb and Hammer Blog

The plumber is coming Monday to begin work on our heating system. The house is not quite as far along as I had hoped it would be at this point, but hopefully he will still be able to do his work without too much difficulty. I’m going to be running around, trying to do my own work, trying to help out where I can, and moving stuff around so it’s not in his way– all without my being in his way. Should be interesting, to say the least.

What happened Sunday is a prime example of how easy it is to get side-tracked and how a relatively simple project can snowball. The bottom line is another electrical issue, but this time I was the one who messed up.

A little history lesson

One of the first electrical issues I dealt with in this house was an overloaded circuit in the kitchen. I think there were something like 14 items on the one circuit, including the microwave, counter plugs, fridge, stove (just a duplex receptacle for the gas stove), dishwasher, and lights in the kitchen, back landing, and outside, a plug in the upstairs bedroom, and lights in the built in curio cabinets in the living room. When I split the circuit up, some of the wiring was difficult to trace so I abandoned some of it. The result was a couple of plugs and an overhead light in the kitchen that no longer worked.

A damaged floor joist

In the vicinity of the boiler, there is a floor joist that was split along about 2/3 of its length. The plan today was to remove some of the damage and sister the joist with a new 2 x 10. To accomplish this, I had to disconnect some of the wiring so I could install sister. Well… one of the wires I had to remove was part of the circuit for the kitchen. Tracing the wires coming out of the junction box, it was easy to figure out where each one went, except one. I followed it the length of the basement where it went into another junction box with only one other wire going in. I followed that to another junction point, and finally to the point where the wire went upstairs– to the wall switch that I had long thought was dead.

Major “yikes”

Yup….it was live. An exposed wire in a device box could have zapped anyone who touched it. The power went to two switches– one for the overhead light, and the other to the curio cabinet lights. Luckily, the box was located behind the fridge, next to the doorway to the living room which was a pretty lousy location for the switches anyway. In my defense, not that I have much of one, the wiring was impossible to trace at the time, with some of the aforementioned junctions being inaccessible.

Before you tell me I should have hired an electrician…

The previous owner WAS an electrician. And my experience with a professional licensed electrician was not all that positive in my previous house. That gentleman wired up a new light and switch from an abandoned junction box and it took him a while to figure out why it didn’t work. Even the pros make mistakes, although I’ll admit a dead circuit is not dangerous whereas a live circuit is.

Getting back to my story…where was I?

Okay….So I now have a three kitchen circuits disconnected so I can sister the damaged joist. I’m ready to lift the new joist in place but there is plumbing from the boiler in the way. Now I have to wait for the plumber to disconnect those pipes so I can get the joist in place and then re-run the wiring so we can have our dishwasher, microwave, and lights back.

Let there be light….

Finding the live wire started another ball rolling. Why not reconnect the kitchen light and the curio cabinet lights that were operated from the switches? I could do it quite easily, but it’s old wiring that has no ground. Besides, the location for the switches is pretty lousy anyway. And, thanks to removing the built-in pantry and replacing it with a store-bought one, there is now room on the wall on the other side of the doorway for the switches to be installed without being obstructed.

Careful, now….watch how this can snowball

I have some drywall repairs to make: the wall that was opened up for access to the plumbing for the heat and, soon, the wall where the old switches were located (once it is determined that the wires are 100% without a doubt abandoned). So it will be a good chance to repaint the kitchen with a cleaner, fresher colour than the horrible mushroom beige that is sponged on the walls now.

The wife suggested carrying the blue from the hallway through the kitchen. Problem with that is that the cabinet doors are painted green.

So it would be a good chance to repaint the kitchen cabinets. Problem with that is that the cabinet doors are cheap particle board, and some are thicker than others.

So it would be a good chance to replace the cabinet doors with something a little better, like plywood (which would look a whole lot better than the particle board if it is painted a solid colour. The cabinet doors in our old house were plywood that had a couple coats of urethane, and they looked pretty good).

But then, why stop at the doors. Why not get some replace the rest of the cabinets….

HOLD IT! I’m a couple steps away from completely gutting the kitchen. Not in the budget. Not in our immediate plans. I think I’ll just paint the walls a colour that goes well with green cabinet doors….

Update on the upstairs bedrooms

The guest room has been repainted and while there are still flaws in the drywall that I haven’t fixed, the “striped” wall that I feathered out looks a whole lot better. Next step is to pick up some 3/4 inch plywood and patch the sub-floors but that will have to be done after the plumbing is roughed in. Then, after a thorough clean-up, I’ll call for an estimate for professional installation of the bamboo flooring.

New toy on order

I have placed an order for The Coper, which is a jig to for making cope cuts in moldings with a router. Eventually, I will be replacing every piece of molding in this house, so it should be a good investment. Expect to hear more about this cool tool once I start installing the base moldings upstairs. That could be as soon as a couple of weeks if all goes well.