... and Tears

As you'll recall, in the last post I spilled a bit of blood.

Well, here are the tears to go along with it.  They might be tears of joy that I'm getting rid of the nutty stuff like this.  Or tears of sadness that I have to.

Take your pick...

So, this is the electrical box for the sconce in the back hall.  I guess I should be happy that there's a box at all.  Most of the knob-and-tub has no box; the wires just poke out of the plaster...
1 - it should be a light fixture box, not a switch box.
2 - the red wire doesn't have any sort of protection from the sharp edges of the metal box
3 - the red wire runs to the 3-way switch below the fixture
4 - the black wire is hot and is on a separate circuit
5 - the white wire is serving as the neutral for the light, but is on the same circuit as the black wire

And here's the switch box immediately below the light.
1 - the travellers are connected (as they should be) to the bottom terminals on the 3-way switch
2 - the common terminal has the red wire from the previous photo and the common wire that runs back to the other light controlled by these switches

I am SO glad I'm fixing what I can while I have the walls open...

Blood, Sweat, ...

This is not the first time blood has been drawn...

Once again there's a deadline and I have a series of things to get done before the tile guy comes for the master bathroom.  I finished the "new" electrical rough-in a week or so ago and have been working on replacing some of the old knob-and-tube in the hallways while I have access.  Some of it runs through what will be the master bath and now's the time if I'm ever going to do it.

There is also a dire need for more light in a couple of places in both the first floor and second floor halls, so I'm wiring for new fixtures while I'm at it.

This photo is at the "front" end of the first floor hall.  I've cut a hole to be able to trace the old wires and fish the new wires up from the basement.  At this point I looked down and noticed that the bleeding had already stopped.

Not sure when it started.  I was "focused" on some other things, so the reason why will come in the next post.

Stay tuned...

It Never Ends...

This should have been a post about progress on the master bath.

But it's not.

The light over the island in the kitchen has been acting strangely over the past couple of weeks.

It would occasionally flicker.

Or s l o w l y  turn on after flipping the switch.

In the latter case, there was a slight delay which gradually became longer.

Finally, the delay became infinite (OK, technically it wasn't infinite; I got tired of waiting...).

I replaced the bulb and still no joy.

So I replaced the stinkin' fixture with one that won't fail.

It's very stylish. ;-)

Now if I can just get this bathroom done so I can drop a bomb in this d!*n kitchen.

New Master Bath - Part 2

Last weekend, after I finished patching the sub-floor, I started hanging drywall.

SWMBO was out of town lying on the beach with her girlfriends...

So I recruited Little Man and SWMBO, Jr. to help hang the sheets on the ceiling.  Over the course of the day, we managed to get most of the ceiling done.  It's a lot easier with a lift, but we only needed to hang 3 full-size sheets.

We also managed to get a couple of pieces on the wall before picking up SWMBO at the airport.

It was a busy week with other goings on (see rileyspockets.com).

Needless to say, not much else got done this week.

Until this weekend.

In between the other weekend activities, I managed to get the rest of the sheets hung on the walls.  I also got the exterior of the shower stall done.

My Rotozip makes quick work of the holes that need to be cut.  The bits are quite fragile however; they break on a pretty regular basis.  I have the shop-vac attachment which really helps keep the amount of dust to a minimum.

New Master Bath - Part 1A

Earlier today I finished laying the sub-floor in the shower.  It's built up 3/4-inch above the floor in the rest of the room, but that's OK.  The shower pan would have forced it to a different height anyway.  At least we now have solid backing over the entire space.

I also pieced in sub-floor chunks in the rest of the room.

In addition, I made some minor mechanical adjustments - the HVAC duct openings needed to be extended out past the furring strips, the attic's electrical feeder cable needed to be stapled down, and the same for the AC drain tube.

I have a little electrical rough-in to clean up, but that will extend into the hallway (I want to get rid of some of the knob-and-tube in the hallway).

However, there's a big stack of drywall in the hallway that needs to be moved first.  Might as well hang it if I'm going to move it...

New Master Bath - Part 1

There's another deadline looming later in the year, so it's time to get back to work.

As part of the attic project, a lot of demolition was done in what was previously the butler's bedroom.  The electrical and plumbing were roughed-in at the same time as the attic.  That work involved cutting holes in the sub-floor.

The bulk of the framing got done, but the sub-floor never got patched.  Hence the current task.

You'll note in this photo that there's not enough room for the sub-floor to clear the shower drain line (2x4 lying on edge on the far side of the drain).

So I'll be building up the floor a bit as well. Step one in this photo.

Sort of.

I had to adjust the drain first by hacking it off so I can raise it by the proper amount.  It was either that or re-doing the whole length back to the vent (and probably further than that).

Obviously I still need another layer of sub-floor over this or there's no support for the shower pan over the drain line.

Sludge

In science class at my kids' school they have a project called "Sludge".  Each student gets a jar full of unidentified material and the student performs various experiments to determine what components are in their mixture.

One of the sinks in the kids' bath has been draining slowly, so I took it apart today to see what the issue was.

It was sludge.

The tailpipe on the boys' sink was mostly clear.  The one on the girls was lined with this.

I'm not sure what it is really.  There's a little bit of hair in it, but it's mostly a thick layer of goop around the inside of the pipe.

Is it several years worth of makeup residue?

It's Slowly Spreading

The horse theme has begun to spread from the study bath.

Here's the back story: There's an English hunting motif on the study bath's door, which led us to carry the theme into the bathroom.  The walls have a faux antique leather finish and we found an English riding helmet, crop, and boots.  We also found some artwork depicting old English fox hunts to tie everything together.

All this has been done for quite some time.

Fast forward to today where the two horses have been hung, one on either side of the window near the entrance to the study bath.  The two pieces came from SWMBO's uncle who recently passed away.

Of course, there was artwork there already, but...

It wasn't meant to go there.

So they came down and have been moved to their originally intended location, the vestibule.

More nail holes to bug me...

On the other hand, that laser level I bought has come in handy when hanging these.

Bubbles

One of the errands while we were running around today was picking these up.  We'd picked fabric through a decorator we've been using and they finally came in.  They replace the chairs that were photo-bombing in a recent post.

The pattern isn't quite as wild in person as it appears in the photo.  The fabric really picks up the colors in the room & the other accessories and helps unify things a bit more.

As always, there was concern about getting things up the attic staircase because it is quite narrow and has a couple of 90-degree turns.  The chairs *just* fit through the doorway at the bottom of the stairs.

The Silver Cup

Here are more examples of why some people refer to Saint Paul as "Saint Small".

Long-time readers of this blog will remember the very first post, in which I shared a little information about the first two owners.  The silver cup in this picture is on display at Town & Country Club.  It was won by none other than the second owner of our house, P. Dean Gribben.  At some point it would be interesting to talk with the club historian to learn more about this cup, as well as why it is on display.

And another interesting coincidence, the original Town & Country Club was designed by the same architect as our house; Cass Gilbert.