Day 11--The Workshop

Dad and I met at 8:00 this morning.  The crawlspace was still damp, so we focused on working "outside" the house again.  This house has a beautiful workshop attached to the garage, so that is where our focus was today.

And that tiny little room took up our ENTIRE day!!!

It was more of the same.  Find the grey aluminum wire, fish new wire through studs, around bends, through ceilings, down walls, and hope for the best.  Well, we did not get the best.  We ran into PLENTY more staples in the walls again, so we had to cut holes in the drywall.  Also, this room is actually further back than where my attic ends, so I can't even get over the top of it anyway.  It was an interesting day of fishing for wires and cutting into walls.

But it was progressing!

We figured out the power wire started at a junction box behind one of the overhead light fixtures, so that's where we started.  From there, one wire went to the light switch, one wire went down the wall to the first receptacle, and one wire went to the other light fixture.  That receptacle then went to another receptacle which went to a switch which went to an outdoor light.  The other light fixture went down to a receptacle.

The entry point of the power.  Aluminum and two-wire copper.

Needless to say, in this small room, we had a ton of wire to pull and re-wire!!!

I spent most of the day in the attic again.  This room was so tricky due to it being beyond the bottom of my roof.  In the following picture, the end of my roof is the beginning of the downward slant of the ceiling in that room!  So we were blindly feeding wires to each other.  Feeding the wires up to the attic wasn't too bad.  Once again, it was feeding the wires through the walls that was our problem.  The builder stapled the old aluminum wire to the studs, and it's nearly impossible to move.

That grey wire is the culprit.  It's aluminum.  Notice how it goes down beyond the end of my attic!  So hard to get to.

So yet again, we had LOTS of drywall holes in order to feed the wire through.  By this point, we are getting pretty good at mudding and sanding, so it's almost our "go-to" anymore.  "Oh, the wire won't pull?  Ok, let's cut a hole in the wall!"  :)

 

Pulling wires through the studs.  One stud required us making the hole bigger.  What a pain!  Lots of patchwork to do!

As Dad wired, I patched our holes!

Just as quick as the holes were made, I followed behind to patch them up!

No, but seriously, we HAD to make holes in the drywall!  That wire was simply impossible to get to!

More holes!  This time we were having to route it through the slanted ceiling and wall.

All patched up!

A new fixture!  And lots of mud.

As Dad worked on some of the wiring, I installed a faucet in the Master Bathroom sink.  When I bought the house, there was literally no faucet at all.  So I installed the vanity and started to install the faucet.  I had to SCRUB the vanity and tiles first.  There was so much mold and mildew caked in there.  I used plenty of bleach!  The faucet went together fairly well.  I'll have to wait until tomorrow to finish it completely, as the "guts" below the sink is in need of some updates.

I also started to caulk between the floor and the tiles.  There is quite a bit of a gap!

It's taking plenty of caulk to fill these cracks!

The Master Bathroom is coming together!!!

But for the first time since I purchased the home, we were able to use toilets in the house!!!  I can't even begin to tell you how much that means to us!  We have been traveling to the gas station for #2 and peeing in the shower!  Seriously!  It's going to be hard to break that habit, but it was nice to have to walk a short distance to do your duty.

Unfortunately, the water couldn't stay on.  I noticed a teeny tiny leak under the sink in the Main Bathroom.  It's so frustrating!!!  My new 1/4-turn valve is leaking ever so slightly, but a leak is a leak.  I tried re-threading the pipe with new teflon tape, but that didn't do the job.

So for the umpteenth time since I've owned the house, the water is BACK OFF again!!!  It's maddening!

I also pulled off a curious piece of wood in the garage.  A large thin piece of wood had been installed right on top of the drywall, and my suspicion was that someone had rammed their car into the wall.  After removing the wood, my suspicion was confirmed.  So we have even more mudding to do!  That's all right, though...I have plenty of drywall laying around!

Dad headed over to the blue house to work on some electrical work in the early evening as I stayed behind to clean and mud the corners of the fireplace.  I have never done a corner seam before, but I just did what I thought was best!  Lots of mud.  Over at the blue house, we had discovered a four-way switch was bad in that living room a few days ago, but we had no testers to figure it which one exactly.  Armed with the proper tools this evening, Dad had it fixed in no time at all.  He also installed four new tubes in my garage lights over there, and now those are working.  So both houses are starting to take shape!

It's pretty exciting!!!  It wasn't a perfect day, and that workshop certainly had its difficulties, but it's all wired up!  Tomorrow we focus on the garage!!!

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!

A new 1/4-turn washer valve.



A new gas fitting for the stove.

A new bottom spout for the gutter.

All in all a solid day.  Nothing overly exciting.  Just methodical, tedious, but forward-moving work.

Day One: The Blue House!

I've concluded that I make horrendous, amazing decisions.

About 10 days after my offer was accepted on the Rochester house, I drove by a house in my neighborhood that I had been keeping my eye on for the last several months.  As the story goes, I had noticed the house was empty for several months, so over the winter, I dropped a letter in the mailbox telling the owner I was interested in the house.  Nothing ever came of that.

Well, one day as I was driving out of my neighborhood, the owners were FINALLY around.  I stopped by to talk about a refrigerator in the garage, and the next thing I know, a few days later, I had bought a second house.

I started official work on that second house today!!!  In the midst of working on the Rochester house!  I am officially crazy!!!

It's so close to my house that I literally walked a stove down the street on a dolly to the new house.  The neighbors must think I'm nuts, but I figured it was easier than loading it into the back of a truck.

I already had my painter and carpet installer come in, and the house is seriously transformed already.  When I bought the house, the colors were HORRENDOUS, and no carpet existed anywhere in the house!  Now it's a cute little home.

The 3rd bedroom Before...

And After!!!

The 2nd bedroom Before...

And After!!!

The Master Bedroom Before...

And After!!!

The house as I bought it.

I spent some time this afternoon working on some quarter-round in the kitchen.  The linoleum is in decent shape, but it is peeling in so many areas around the cabinets.  So I bought some quarter-round and started installing it.  It's amazing what small trim can do for a home!

Before...

After!

I also cleared out the attic.  The previou owner had left behind quite a bit of junk, so I dropped it all out of the attic and then filled my truck for the dumpster!!!

Junk from the attic.

The house is coming together.  Dad worked on and finished a short wire to the air-conditioning unit.  The previous owner had let me know about a short wire, and Dad was able to fix that.  I have a few minor projects to work on, but really all the house needs is carpet and paint, and that is already done!!!

I finished up a few small projects like replacing the doorstops (all of them were original and bent!).  I also hung up the shelving in the laundry room.  The main bathroom needs the towel bar re-hung, but it needs a new wall anchor.

The doorstops Before...

And After!

Hanging up the shelves in the laundry room.

The main bathroom towel rod needs rehung.

Probably the biggest project that I know of is the hot water faucet in the laundry room needs replaced.  The handle is broke, but no matter how hard I tried to remove the handle alone, it wouldn't budge.  So I have to replace the whole unit.

The hot water faucet needs replaced.

But this house should be rentable soon!!!