Slaying the Giant Electron Octopus

The abridged version.

Its dead, drawn and quartered remnants baking in the sun on the deck.

Replaced by this beautiful yet somewhat costly Romex wire in two flavors. 14-2 and 12-2

When we last left you we still had the ceiling over the back entry door in place. Well I figured I might as well go whole hog and do it right, so that came down leaving two wires running across the newly vaulted stairwell ceiling that needed to be dealt with. So started the saga with the Great Electron Octopus. I easily determined that the white wire daisy-chained the upstairs outlets together. But the old gnarly black wire went in to the wall on the right of the above photo.

To this mess at the light switch. The two lower fat wires with the yellow wire nuts are that black wire running across my newly vaulted ceiling. I guess it is time to shut the power off to the breaker that feeds that.

But as nothing is labeled in the basement breaker box, a bit of sorting is in order. For European readers used to seeing 220 volts, the standard here in the US is 110 volts. The big grey line coming in to the box is two lines of 110. That's the two big fat wires that are divided in to two banks of 110 volts with two columns of breakers. About 12 hours of head scratching and wire tracing in this mess allows me . . . .

. . . . to make a legend so I know what breaker is tied in to what wire and what else is piggybacked on to it further down the line. Seventy years of hacks messing with things and hiding them behind walls is a frightening thing.

Back tracing the black wire in the stairwell brings us to a couple of these totally illegal and positively monkey rigged affairs.

So finish cutting out the drywall in the back room and start snipping wires.

The black wire fed the light switch in the back room, which fed the overhead light, and then went from there to . . . .

 . . . the middle wire in this photo of the ceiling light  fixture in the master bedroom, and fed the light switch in the wall by the bedroom door . . .

. . . . that then fed the switch for the light over the front door of the house. (lovely wall paper eh!) that then . . .

. . . fed the head of the Great Electron Octopus at the top of the stairs via the lower entry into that gang-box seen in the photo above. The image is just the mess I saw when I pulled down the ceiling drywall at the top of the stairs on the second floor. Can you say hacked? Not even put together, just all hanging off one nail not even properly affixed to the rafters.

Which I happened to find while tracing out the old stairwell light wire to its source after about 15 hours of messing with all the outlets upstairs to sort out what was piggybacked on to what, and determining that there had to be a junction box hidden somewhere in the peak of the house and removing the remaining drywall in the stairwell ceiling was the only logical solution.

That then allowed me to install new insulation in the stairwell ceiling.

And finally make up a schematic of what was tied to what and how everything was being fed by one single 15 amp breaker feeding the back door light switch, that fed the back mud room and outside lights, and the back room ceiling light, that fed the master bedroom ceiling light, that fed the outside front lights, and the upstairs head of the Great Electron Octopus, that fed the outlets upstairs and the stairwell light.

I have now run two new feed wires up to the second floor in order to feed each bedroom from a separate breaker. Also rewired the bathroom lights and ceiling fan, that never went anywhere.

So I installed a new bathroom fan with a proper vent . . .

and the corresponding duct work

to vent the bathroom outside . . .  to prevent the mold that I was trying to clean up when I started this whole process 10 days ago.

So I finished removing the wall paper in the bathroom

Lovely stuff, isn't it?

And that is the short and sweet version of the story . . . I think I am making headway.

Honest, I was just going to clean the shower

But then I took a closer look at the wall paper above the shower and figured it was getting  a bit nasty.

So I started to tear it off, and wouldn't you know it, I made a whole lot of work for my self.

The easiest was to pull the vinyl facing off leaving the paper backer. Then hit the paper backer with wall paper remover, wait 10 minutes and scrape it off. This is a taste of what awaits me for the rest of the house as the whole place was wallpapered before we bought it.
So I mixed up some Durabond joint compound and skimmed the disaster to make it ready for paint.
And while I had the mud out I might as well hit the other bits in the house that needed mudding.

Like the stairway drywall that had never been taped and plastered.

But then there was a whole lot of trim that looked like it had been milled with a chainsaw, complete with gaps you could throw a cat through that was in the way, and I thought I might as well tear it out and plaster all the drywall joints that junk was hiding.

And then I thought while I was making a mess in the stairwell I might as well open up the ceiling for the skylight that I had installed when I re-roofed the place, but due to the wires for the lamp in the way, I was hesitant to tackle before and just sort of forgot about. So I wound up doing some electrical work as well.

And since I will need to do some drywall repairs to the ceiling I might as well keep going and tear the rest of the junk out of the way. So now I can crawl in the eves and run a proper duct for the bathroom vent to keep the moisture and mold at bay. And add some better insulation in there as well.

Then Annie comes home and admires my mess and how much light we have pouring down the stairs. And I figured, hmmmmmmm

Lets see . . . . draw a nice straight line following the slope of the stairs

And tear out the two layers of 50 year old drywall.

Honest . . . I don't know what happened . . . I was just cleaning the bathroom

And now we have a hole in the kitchen wall

Is it any surprise they only used 2x3s instead of 2x4s? not a single nail matches the previous one I pulled. If there was a way to monkey-rig things in this place the previous owners had found a way.

Now that is much better, and it opens up the entry so you are not staring at the edge of a wall when we walk in the house.

Makes for a bigger kitchen as well

And since I just got some sheet-rock I might as well tear out the old stuff in the back room that was damaged when I replaced the windows.

And replace it with new drywall to make the joint taping simpler. I even got the electrical box in the
right place.

And the other one in the back room gets insulated and filled in

And patch the bit in the bathroom that has been hidden by the curtain since I replaced the window.

I think there will be a bit more tearing out and a whole lot of wall paper to remove now. But for now I am pleased with where we are going with this.

A little bit of flying

On Saturday afternoon we went out for a test flight to check the Bonanza after the annual inspection.

So I finally got brave and decided to try out the video feature on my Lumix LX7.
Here are the results.

The take-off run

Left climb out to the WUDDE fix for a procedure turn in the hold.

WUDDE inbound on final and landing on RWY 22 at Auburn-Lewiston.

Salsa Verde, a dressing made from cilantro.

One large bunch of well rinsed cilantro minus the big stems.

In to the bullet blender with 1/2 cup of olive oil, salt pepper, 3 or 4 garlic cloves and the juice from one lemon.

Blend it up until smooth. Add oil and salt as needed to adjust flavor and consistency.

Store in a handy squeeze bottle

Simply awesome on grilled swordfish, chicken, pork or steak.

Served with a simple tomato and avocado salad. One large tomato sliced, and dusted liberally with garlic powder. Add one avocado sliced up, dress with salt pepper, lots of olive oil and white vinegar.

Cilantro sauce even goes well on the morning egg on a muffin.

A Greenhouse of sorts

Seems my tomatoes on the deck may be getting a bit too much sun causing them to wilt a bit during the day before I can get home to water them in the evening . And this may be the cause of my Blossom End Rot . We also have the problem of frequent thunderstorms pummeling the tomatoes and the need to give them some shelter to keep them from being shredded . I figured it was time for a better solution . So yesterday I restacked my firewood wall in the woodshed from the outer edge where it made a nice exterior facade , to the back wall of the barn.

 And using the three large glass panels saved from a job a couple of years ago I glassed in the outer wall .

Normally I only lean the glass panels up against the roof header in winter and remove them in spring so I can mow the edge properly . But given that each half inch thick 45" x 76" panel weighs about 150 pounds it is a bit of a chore . So I built a proper rail out of pressure treated five quarter at the bottom for the glass to fit on and made them a bit more permanent .

And a shelf with a couple of old staging planks for the plants.

Seems while restacking my firewood I disturbed a bumble bee nest and got stung a couple times in the ankles . Lost count of the number of mosquito bites , but the tomatoes might just be happier .

And I'll have to fuss with the tomatoes and the glass a bit less.