Solar post lamps

Our house has a lamp post out in the front yard. It was wired with all new wire up until the line ran under the house, at which point someone taped (yes, taped) the wires from the new cable to an old one coming from the switch box. I suppose I could have put a junction box there and run a new cable from the switch box, but that seemed sloppy, as did digging a new trench for one cable for one light.

So I started doing research on solar post lamps. On at night, off in the daytime.. extra bonus that the power doesn't have to be ON at the house for the light to come on. They were all very pricey ($100 and up, before shipping), and I was beginning to despair of finding one to even begin to match the style I was looking for at any kind of reasonable price point.

Then I found DM Solar.

They only had one lamp, but it was within my budget and it was the sort of style I was looking for. I ordered 2, as I also have a lamp post in the back yard that may be difficult to wire. Both of them with shipping wound up costing me just about $98 - less than any other single lamp I'd been able to find before, not even including shipping.

We installed one, and it looks great and it works beautifully.

I like this view the best, with the wall and the bushes.

This one puts it more in context with the house. Sorry about the vertigo-inducing angle.

 It doesn't light up the whole yard, but I didn't want that anyway. I'm very pleased.

We got us another wall

Some extreme before & after goodness:

 

 

I suppose it's not really an "after," since we're clearly not quite finished with the wall - (paint, baseboards, trim, not to even mention the top and right edges), but the difference is so major that I was startled when I compared the two. Sadly it's not a proper B&A, since the first shot is from the wrong angle. In my defense, when I took it there really wasn't anywhere else to stand.

So this weekend we patched the large hole, then scraped off all the paint that would flake, then taped the joints and skim coated the whole wall. I also installed the switch box and the receptacle on the left. I love wiring. I have an unfortunate splinter in the tip of my thumb though, so the husband twisted my wire nuts on for me.

My mom went around and removed all the old crappy various random hardware bits from the trim around the windows; it wound up being a small bucket full.

The deadbolt for the sliding door is ON (thank you, husband), and that sucker ain't going anywhere when it's locked. If you have a broken sliding glass door lock and no time or finances to replace the door right now, I highly recommend it. I bought mine on ebay for $19 all told, but this is the website: http://www.caldoubleboltlock.com/

The site is kind of loud and annoying and as-seen-on-TV-ey, but the product is tops.

Hot patches galore

St. Patrick's day was fabulously productive. I spent the first part of the day delicately transplanting my tomato and other seedlings into individual cups, then off to work on the wall in the late afternoon. On Wednesday I spent my time cutting the receptacle opening larger so that I could fit the box in there, and on Thursday it was just about ready to patch. I'd measured and made the patch Wednesday evening.

I have a nice series of photos to go with, almost a step-by-step.

Metal lath hate, reprise

After the fantastic time we had on Sunday, Monday was a bit of a letdown. I spent three hours trying to get an electrical box into the opening behind the metal lath and plaster, but since the wall cavity is so shallow and the #$%& lath and plaster is so thick in that area, it's pretty much a no go. I'm going to have to cut out a bigger portion and then patch with drywall so that a shallow old work box will fit behind it.

A large portion of that time was also spent trying to install a deadbolt for our sliding glass door too, as we don't have the cash flow right now to completely replace it and the lock is broken.

I did take a photo of the patches for the bathroom heater, though, so all is not lost. I do suppose I'd rather waste three hours of a weekday evening than a weekend day on doing the whole box thing, and either way it would have had to be done. I haven't failed, I've just found many ways that won't work!

Here's the photo:

I think he did a fabulous job. It still needs to be covered and the joints feathered out, but the lion's share of this job is complete.

One wall (mostly) in the bag, NEXT wall!

This weekend was full of gorgeous good weather and lots of sunshine - but not too much. We basked in the sun and we reveled in the fact that we'd have an entire extra hour of daylight on Sunday!

On Saturday, the most excellent other half installed the bathroom heater - leaving the wiring for me. I worked on pulling a wire from one side of the crawlspace opening to the other:

This is what took up the bulk of my Saturday. For real. I ran the cable from the opening on the left through the ceiling/wall space above that little closet to the great big hole that I knocked in the wall on the right, then down to the proper hole. The hole only had to be so big because the stupid plaster had broken down behind the wall and nothing could push the lumps out of the way without more access. Argh. Next weekend: hole patching.

On Sunday, Awesome Man laminated thin plywood sheets to the studs and support beams so that the wall patch will match the plaster in thickness, and then I installed the box and stapled the cables.

He spent a good deal of time making perfect drywall hot patches to go around the heater he had put in on Saturday. It looks pretty sweet.
 

Also on Sunday, we went from this:

To this:

The bench top WAS on initially, but I didn't take a photo of that. Taking it off was quite a hassle, but we did it without making any cuts (except in the nails), and I'm quite pleased with us. I'm very happy with this progress because I've been wondering for months how I was going to get electricity over to this side of the room. We're almost ready to paint in here.

Can anyone tell me WHY the wood smelled like feces when I started cutting into it? It was strong and very unpleasant and it created a cloud of yuck that gave me a migraine before I left.

I've also finally developed an excellent way to get romex into old work romex boxes with a) the right amount of insulation inside the box and b) without nicking any wires, thanks to my Klein K1412. I use this tool to cut through the outer sheathing of the cable exactly where I want the sheathing to end inside the box, then pull it halfway off and pull the paper from between the wires. After that, I push the sheathing back onto the wires and pull it through the box clamp. Once it's through, I slide the sheathing back off again and YAY! Perfect, undamaged wire insulation.

Amazing

Nothing in the world beats the feeling of having pulled 4x8 sheets of drywall straight up via the small opening next to the stairs, causing the sheets to more-or-less bypass the stairs entirely. Sure, your arms may shake and you may feel like you can't quite do it, but once it's done it is a feeling of outright dominance, human vs. very heavy object. I wondered why the stairs were built like that. I still don't know why, but am very glad, because taking them up the stairs the traditional way would have been far far more difficult.

Two people are definitely a must for such a task; three would have been better. So happy we didn't try to take them up while they were still paired together; THAT would have been impossible.


We can do anything!