Hi Mary...

Garage in the foreground, with numbered days

Our to-do plan and schedule for the next 2 1/2 weeks

Among the many items we need to move on, a Easy Spindryer vintage washing machine. I had fantasies of running of powering this by bicycle. Never happened, but we did actually do a couple of loads of laundry in it

I re-framed the opening for the window coming up the stairs, and soon we'll relocate the window to match the new height. The original location was a bit high.

Recent events have prompted us to refocus our energy on taking down the garage sooner then we had originally planned. It means some scurrying now, but we're both excited at the prospect that the house will be able to stand on its own without the dubious presence of the garage right in front of it.

Given this new challenge, Nance and I have been working through the logistics of everything that needs to happen to actually have this thing torn down. Currently (no pun intended) the electric line from the pole goes to the meter and panel housed in the garage, as does the phone line. Relocating these requires timing, coordination, digging, and materials all be lined up and carefully ordered so that we are able to maintain service and make the switch safely, allowing for a large excavator to come in, knock down the building and then load it into dumpsters. Never mind that we have tons of stuff in there we need to sort through and then relocate to the basement. Its a big project, and it will delay focused progress on the house a bit, but it is ultimately part of getting the whole project done, so it really is just a reordering towards that end.

Closing in on the electrical

The electrical punch list

Some wires in place

A triple switch box in the kitchen

This is where the bed will be. You can see the matching outlets and light switch boxes to the left and the right with the blue light mounting box above in the center

Last Friday Felton came up to the house and did a walk-through with me to go over the progress on the electrical work. It was useful and as we talked I made a list of things I needed to change, correct, or complete. With the list in hand, I want to work through this stuff and be as done as I can be with the electrical work. I hope that I'll be there in another day or two, although it seems to go slower then it seems like it should.

Before moving on I'm going to go around and label everything so we know what is what and what is going where for what purpose. I've been labeling along the way, but not thoroughly, so I want to make sure we can understand everything once the sheetrock is covering the wires snaking through the walls.

The challenge is to anticipate and wire for intuitive light switching as you move through the house. I drew this all out in plan but have found myself mostly just doing it from feel in the actual house. Today I ran a circuit that allows us to turn on a light centrally located on the first floor from either entrance doorway or at the bottom of the stairs. A similar issue has been working out lighting for coming up the stair and going to bed. We've decided that we'll have a light over the bed that can be switched from either side of the bed and at the top of the stairs as you come up. The last photo shows the boxes in place for this as well as the blue light mounting box affixed to the rafter centered above.

I'm ready to get done with the electrical work and move on to completing the plumbing.