It's Electric

We had another jam-packed weekend but for some reason there isn’t as much to show for it. We put in another 30 hours of labor over the course of a 3-day period (this sounds perfectly reasonable but just to note: we started up Friday night after work). We took 4 trips to Lowe’s. And we brought 750 pounds to the dump, which is nothing compared to last weekend.

The biggest accomplishment was finishing up the majority of the electrical work. There’s still some final pieces to wrap up (reinstall the doorbell, add surround-sound speakers to the ceiling, etc.) but the lion’s share of this work is finished. Thank God!  We now have:

·         1 chandelier fixture

·         1 fixture in case we decide to add an island somewhere down the road

·         3 peninsula fixtures

·         16 recessed lights (I refuse to call them cans—I hate that word for some reason)

·         4 under cabinet lights (just the wiring—obviously the cabinets aren’t in yet)

·         1 overhead light for the bathroom

·         16 outlets

And we ran three new lines down to the circuit breaker. We’re having an electrician check our work (and I use “our” very loosely) and tie everything into the breaker for us. My one attempt to help resulted in my getting shocked because I accidentally grabbed a live wire. Good times!



Note the two rows of recessed lights are up and running!

If you’ve ever done any electrical work you’ll know that the biggest challenge is snaking the wires through the ceilings and walls. It can be relatively painless or it can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. It’s probably one of the more frustrating jobs out there, especially when there’s insulation in the interior walls for no good reason.  This house has so many quirks. My very gracious, generous father-in-law dedicated his entire day on Saturday to helping us. He is a master snaker, and it probably would have taken Jeremy and me three times as long to snake everything ourselves. I cannot thank him enough.  We owe him! 



The snaking master at work.



The other big job this weekend was tearing down some more walls and ripping up the old bathroom's sub floor. Our plumber came out on Friday to assess the project and realized he’d need some additional walls opened up. While Jeremy and his dad snaked, I tore out a couple of walls. No big deal. We also removed the upper cabinets and took out two soffits (one in the kitchen and one in the garage—our plumbing will run through the garage ceiling).





The walls once I was through with them.

Sunday morning I had Jack Hart’s Breakfast Roast and the Southie St. Patrick’s Day Parade on in the background while we worked which might not have been my best idea. I had a big case of the FOMS (Fear of Missing Something) about not being a part of the revelry. The parade used to pass by behind our house and the last couple of years we hosted a brunch with Bloody Mary’s and Mimosas. I would have given my eye teeth to be back in Southie yesterday instead of ripping apart my kitchen in the burbs.

Jeremy keeps telling me we’re in great shape. I guess I’ll have to trust him because to me, it seems like we’re a pretty far ways away from a finished product. At the end of a very long weekend we pulled together a to-do list for the upcoming week. Looks like it’s going to be another busy week!