Electrical

ELECTRICAL

Well I’m now doing the switch wiring for the ceiling lights. Plenty of 3-way, and a few 4-way switches. It was a trick figuring them out in the beginning, I ran them just like the books all said, the diagrams and instructions in the books are wrong. Realizing they were wrong, was the first step. I took a scan from the Stanley Complete Wiring book, and then redrew how it really works.

And then the way it really is....

Now the wiring is a snap and everything works perfect. It helps that I keep them well labeled, and wire one switch before cutting into the next wire bundle. I have all the wires labeled in the walls in case there is a re-wire project in the future, they’ll know what goes where.

The Master bedroom has two 4-way switches, two 3-way switches, there were switches to other rooms as well, so the wiring took a few hours to wire. The switch boxes are temporarily placed here and there close to where they will permanently be set, once we have walls to put them in.

This set of five switches only took 30 minutes to wire. They are for the Hall (3-way) – 2 for the Livingroom (each 4-way) – Entry light (4-way) – Pendants (single) It looks so good to have the mess of wires cleaned up and ready to be hooked to the lights and load center.

I need to cut the light box holes into the ceiling, I have them mapped out and I know now where to put them, the pilot holes are drilled, now just need to get up into the rafters and put them in.

Got the wiring ready to run to the porch, even though we don’t yet have an enclosed porch.



I am slowly getting the spaghetti of wires calmed down, and organized.

Had a side project going too… My son’s school is having a fundraiser auction so I am making a couple signs.

One for over the Silent Auction tables, the other for the Ticket Booth.

Catching up yet again on the blog.

Well we got all the fireproofing insulative foil up on the ceiling, all the seams taped, soooo.....

We put up the tongue and groove ceiling. This bit of drywall is where the future fireplace will be.



Mary did most all the staining. Kayla and Peg helped here and there too. That scaffolding from Menards works great, gets us right up there were we need to be. Takes some getting used to swinging out around the end to get down the ladder, but it is amazingly stable.

Other projects which got done since the last post...

Bathroom


A before picture of the tub ...



And the After pictures of the tub.

The bathtub surround is finally in, it took two shower kits to accomplish, but there is a sitting bench in the back and the shower walls go clear to the ceiling. Also we put in the arcing shower rod, it is amazing how much more room there is in there with the shower curtain even just a few inches further out.



We are tall, so we made sure the shower head was as high as we could comfortably make it. And so we put in an adjustable height shower wand for the short one in our life... D’... who uses the bench in the back of the shower for a parking lot for Matchbox cars.

Kitchen


Since we got the ceiling done in the kitchen, we put up pendant lights centered above the kitchen counter windows.



Kitchen counter…WooHoo!!!… I built the kitchen counter up to the height that is comfortable for us to use. It is 40” high, that’s four inches higher than a normal counter.


We are taking off the kick boards from the cabinets giving us an additional 3+ inches of useable space underneath, which adds up to seven inches... we will in-time build kick drawers for under the cabinets that you can pull out with your foot; they will be on little wheels... I saw them in a book once, sounded like a good use of space.


The counter is also 3 feet deep, compared to everyones normal 2 foot deep counters. These aren’t the final countertops, nor the final cabinets, but the measurements are permanent.


We played around with different pans and tea kettles, until we found the right pans to use on the Induction Stove, came out that the old Cast Iron skilets worked the best, so we oiled them up and they work great sometimes better than non-stick pans. Mary tried another brand of kettle but it rattled real bad from the magnetic cooktop, then she found this one on Amazon, that works good, but still not great; it rattles a little bit since it is only steel on the bottom, but the top isnt steel...so weird.

Bedroom



Ah, a bed fit for a king and his queen. This was quite a good bargain. Matches the dresser and nightstands beautifully. The 12 foot ceilings allow plenty of room for the bed which is about 8 ½ ft tall. Walking into the room you’d think you just walked into a castle bedroom…hence; the name of our home... McKenzie Castle!




Also a Picture of the Dresser that matches our nightstands, and bed, Mary found it online and had to get it shipped from the state of Washington to our local RP lumberyard. They got it off the truck with their forklift, and hauled it across the street to our storage shed. Real nice folks for going out of their way like that.

SNOW



And now for the SNOW!!! Yeah SNOW!!!

About 12 inches from this blast and an inch or two since then.



Yep, that’s me on the tractor, and yes I have on snow pants rather than shorts.. I am extremely hot blooded, not stupid. :0) So we got about a foot of snow on most of the driveway, drifts from two to three feet deep. NICE!



And a picture of the back yard.

I think we should call this storm, “Groundhogs Revenge” they wake those poor animals from hibernation so that some joker in a Top Hat can put his ear to critter and tell everyone that the groundhog talked to him and said that it did or did not see its shadow. Groundhogs Revenge!!