Kitchen Electrical Work

Photos coming later. Rewired the kitchen yesterday, getting the wires that ran down from the ceiling to the island to instead go under the floor. Non-trivial due to the fact that our house employs similar construction methods to Hoover Dam, but we got lucky. Also lucky because the electrical job we found under the island was incredibly dangerously not to code. Now it is.

Some Catching up to do...

...I I know we need to post more often. We took a bit of a breather in Feb. Jan was building a bookcase, and we finally installed the track lights in the living room so we no longer need to use the existing fixtures that the electrican told us were not very wise to use.

March was Yard Yard Yard. I will get some pics up of the yard before, but here is the yard after, now that we got the dirt into place.

The Living Room

We did a lot to the living room. Biggest thing was getting that ceiling painted. It is made of hay and cement formed into tiles, and it drinks paint like Dracula drinks blood. Since the original room had an overhang, there was a large portion of the ceiling that was not painted. We removed the overhang (approximately 15 minutes after the house was recorded in our name) and have been looking at that unpainted hay and cement ever since.

We paid a guy a steak dinner to spray the ceiling. He had to shoot up to four coats to get the celing to look consistent, but the end result was fab. After he was done, we painted the walls and re-did the moulding around the big windows. We also removed all the blinds from the big windows. Before summer, we will get some sun shades installed, but the removal of everything really cleaned up the look of the room, and during the winter months, we get lots of light in through those windows which helps heep the house warm and bright.

The Dining Room

Alas! We are done painting the dining room! Excluding the kitchen, this is most likely the pinnacle of difficulty in the painting projects for our house. The living room will be tough, but we are going to spray the ceiling (and I was able to get a friend with know-how to spray it in trade for a steak dinner). The dining room has lots of beams, vaulted ceilings, lots of drywall repair, and an entirely new wall (see earlier posts). There used to be a lot of little things in the room that cluttered up the look... there was a long string hanging from the ceiling fan because that was the only way to turn it on or off. The wiring to the fan was in plastic wire mold. There were hooks screwed into various things to hang sticks that are used to open and close the clearstorey windows along the top. There were layers of curtain rods. The lamp was extremely unable to light the room, and it was mounted very off-center from the room (as in, 5 feet off center).

We took all that stuff down. We cut holes in the drywall and routed the ceiling fan wiring inside, and installed a switch down at "switch level" so that we can turn the fan on and off without the string. We removed all the hooks. We removed all the curtain rods. We got a much more brilliant light fixture and installed it in the center of the room.

Now that the baroque clutter look is gone, the room just sparkles! The beams, having nothing on them except the light, look fresh, contemporary, and beautiful. Fresh paint ALWAYS makes a room look better, and this room really needed fresh paint. We went with an accent wall, since we will be hanging some very large format black and white pictures on them, and we felt the red would really make it look elegant.

Still to do: We need to paint the window and door trim. We need to install baseboards, and install the wood paneling that will go up to the height of that ledge. But those are all easily done at a slow pace, while we are using the room.

So, as soon as the paint was dry, we moved the dining room furniture back in from the living room, and also brought in the living room furniture temporarily. The living room is now completely empty. Time to mask it all off for spraying the ceiling!

Painting Ceilings is Hard

'nuff said.

Dust

We figured out why the final sanding of the drywall caused Operation Dining Storm. The hose to the dust collector had about, oh, FIVE POUNDS of drywall dust in it. Quite the clog. We unclogged it and my dust collector starting to suck again (in a good way). We have been vaccuming like crazy. We need to go through this cycle for a couple days until we really got this place cleaned up, then we can start painting.

The Infinite Treadmill of Labor Known as Drywall

I really cannot begin to describe how much work drywalling is. But it is not hard work, just grueling work. Having the right tools, the right partner, the right alcoholic beverages, and Lady Gaga makes it possible to do a bang up job. My Dad and I installed the drywall panels, it took a few days. Jen started mudding and taping. We are currently at the second layer of mud, we will sand it tomorrow and then get to applying that final coat.