Sunday, October 18, 2009

The House

Well, we've continued to work on my house, although at times it seemed we were moving backwards rather than forwards.

Progress is being made, however. There is just a bit of crawling around in the attic left to do for the wiring, as we only have two more lines to run to the breaker box, and the drops to make in the office/tack room/laundry room.

First I have to finish tearing out the plaster and lath in the office/tack room/laundry room, so that we can get the boxes for the plug-ins and light switches put in, and the wire drops from the attic made. Then it's just actually installing switches and plug-ins, and tying everything together at the junction boxes, which I can now do. Once all of that is done, it's time to call in someone with a little more skill and confidence than we have to actually install the breaker box, and get everything up and running.

Once the electrical drops are made and all of the attic crawling is finished, I'll be going to the other extreme and making my way underneath the house to do the plumbing, water and gas. Yes, we have to re-run the gas lines as well.

Meanwhile once the pipes are run as far as the wall between the kitchen and office/tack/laundry room, and all the electrical drops are made and the exterior plugs put in, it'll be time to throw up the insulation on the outside walls and transfer a large amount of my crap into that room, so that it will be out of the way.

Because once the plumbing and electric are working in the bathroom and bedroom, I'm going up with the remainder of the insulation (the bedroom is mostly insulated and drywalled, but not completely) and drywall, then texture and paint, and flooring.

Followed by the installation of the necessities of life: the tub, toilet, and sink, as well as the water heater. And the most important bit: my bed.

As soon as I have a functioning bathroom and a finished bedroom, I'm moving in. I can always borrow a kitchen, and I love Farmmom's cooking anyway.

But, it's finally beginning to feel like things are getting accomplished, which means I'll find something in the office/tack/laundry room that requires being completely rebuilt, because that's the way it goes. On the other hand, it is the only room that we have to pull the ceiling down in, so perhaps that's enough for Mr. Murphy.

I'm not counting on it, though.

4 comments:

Old NFO said...

LOL- You're right of course... Glad to hear progress is being made, however small!

Anonymous said...

You don't have to remove the lathe & plaster to get a new drop in. The procedure is to cut a hole through the lathe & plaster large enough for a metal outlet box to fit in there (about 2" x 3.5", if memory serves).

After that is done, up to the attic & drill a 5/8" or 3/4" hole in the top sill of the wall. Make sure that it's in the same framing bay as the hole you cut downstairs.

Feed your wire from above. Measure off enough wire to reach the hole below and feed down that much. A little extra won't hurt.

Back downstairs, scrunch your hand up like you were putting on a bracelet and reach into the hole you cut. See if you can find the wire. If you can, pull it out. If you can't, you'll need to fish it out with a hook made from coat hanger wire.

The box you use should be one of the ones that has the upper & lower edges slanted at a 45 degree angle. Feed about 6" of the wire into the back of this box, and insert it into the hole.

These boxes have tabs on the top & bottom front. You can recess the plaster a bit for these tabs and attach the box with screws run through the tabs into the lathe.

FarmGirl said...

Anonymous- The plaster and lath are coming down regardless. Dropping the electric in while it's out makes more sense than trying to snake it in once the drywall is up, no?

Anonymous said...

Absolutely.