Saving One Penny at a Time: Day 10--More Electrical!

Dad took off this week to help me with the house, and, boy, do I need it!!! We had a plan of getting the kitchen finished today, then moving on to the "outside" stuff like the garage and workshop. Well, that was not to be. I woke up this morning to the sound of rain...on top of the rain we received yesterday! My newly-planted garden was flooded, my peppers and tomatoes were underneath standing water, and my yard was in standing water. I heard we received two inches!

I met my brother and Dad at the house at 8:30 A.M. Ok, so it was more like 8:37 for me, but that is good! My first order of business was clearing out the overflowing gutters. Hundreds of helicopters had accumulated inside, and the water was going over the edges! I cleaned them out only to have more wash down. I was a bit nervous about all of that water running right next to the house, and sure enough, our plans were quickly made for us. We were going to be doing most of the kitchen wiring from the crawlspace, but that was just not going to happen. My crawlspace was under quite a bit of water in places.

Water in the crawlspace!

So we quickly made plans to work on something else...and that consisted of the four switches at the garage door entrance, the front exterior lights, the overhead garage light, and a new overhead light fixture for the dining room.

We started out by cleaning up the actual garage door opener. The previous owner tackily stapled the wire along the wall and ceiling. We decided to run it through the ceiling and down the wall. So much better! I was in the very dry attic for the day, running new Romex and pulling out the old aluminum wire.

Our work was steady but turtle steady. We WERE moving, but we had numerous frustrations along the way. The garage light fixture was easy, as it was in the middle of the attic and easy access. The front exterior lights were a pain in the butt (one of them, anyway), as it was tucked away behind boards that I couldn't get my body or hands down to.

So, unfortunately, we had to cut into the drywall yet again! It's just tedious work. A 20-minute project quickly multiplies to 90 minutes just because of being unable to fish or run wire easily. It's kind of maddening! You KNOW it's such a simple project...but one piece of wood...or one tough location completely negates it all.

One of the exterior light wires. It was easy to follow through the attic, but at this point it went over odd boards, then under, then over again, and out of reach where a body can't fit. We had to cut holes in the drywall to run the new wire.

This afternoon we added a new light fixture to the dining room. The house was built in 1970 when lamps were popular, and the room is set up for a switch to control an overhead dining room lamp. Well, we removed the receptacle from the switch and made that switch control a brand-new overhead dome fixture. It looks so much better and will provide much-needed light to that whole area.

Before: The entire room was supposed to be lit from the ceiling fan in the kitchen.

After: So we added a brand-new fixture! Plenty of light now.

My little nephew came by to help, and for the life of him, he can't figure out why I go in the attic just to talk to him out of a small hole! But what he really can't stand is when I made a mess! And since I had to cut out a junction box hole for my light today, I created quite a big mess! He was on it as quick as could be!

Cleaning up my mess immediately after I make it!

While Dad was wiring, I took a little time to install one of the two toilets. I still couldn't turn the water on since the crawlspace was flooded, but it's starting to look like a bathroom now! The house is slooooooowly going to be able to go back together.

It's sloooooooowly coming together!

So it was another slow day of tedious electrical work. We ARE making progress, but we didn't get to check off a whole lot of boxes today, so that can be demoralizing. I know Dad was pretty frustrated throughout most of the day! But I look at the house in terms of electrical "holes," and we knocked out the...

1. overhead garage light
2. exterior light
3. exterior light
4. dome fixture in dining room
5. switch for garage light
6. switch for dining room light
7. switch for exterior lights
8. switch for kitchen

So it's 8 holes!!! And at $60-$155 per outlet, that's $480-$930 saved today. It sure didn't feel like it, but that's a huge day!!!

Dad in the middle of replacing four switches.

Only three grey wires left!!! It's so nice to see bright yellow in there!

We knocked off around 6:00 P.M. I made a quick trip to Menard's, then headed over to my newest house to tackle a few projects. I'm trying to get this rent-ready on the side!

I purchased and installed a new washing machine faucet (the previous one was broken), a new gas line for my stove (the previous fitting was too small), a new downspout bottom for a gutter, and some air registers to replace the current rusty ones. It was fairly quick but necessary work. So that house is coming together, too!