the disaster zone formerly known as our home

[I know it's been forever, but I was in Denver for a week working on the Women's Final Four and had zero down time to post.  But we're almost caught up!]

Here's Milldale... at the height of the awfulness.  No sink. No stove. No oven. No counters. No kitchen.  This was a terrible stretch - waking up to dust and grime, not being able to cook, no overhead lights to work, no where to really even sit or relax except our bed and a dusty couch.  No wonder they call it the rough-in stage.  It's rough!  So glad that phase is over.

The construction zone formerly known as our kitchen.

The kitchen/pantry/appliance/storage center formerly known as our living room.

The pantry/kitchen/storage area formerly known as our guest bedroom.

 The kitchen counter formerly known as our guest bathroom.

 And the kitchen sink formerly known as our guest bathtub.

 You don't even want to see our garage...

baby it's cold outside

Well... not really.

But we put up some new insulation on the exterior walls nonetheless.  To keep the heat out and the cold in, mostly.  (Not that I really let Chris run the A/C or heater much being the good 'ole cheap German girl and daughter-of-an-A/C-man that I am.)

Pretty, snow white insulation. Much better than the yucky ole pink stuff.

This is a pretty sweet little gadget we added a few months ago.  We have our front and back porch lights on a timer so we don't have to turn them on/off every night/morning. And it has a cool +/- 15min. feature so it doesn't always come on at the exact same time in case anyone is spying!!!

electrical shmectrical

So my eyes pretty much glaze over when it comes to all the electrical work we have to do.  But I try to be the best apprentice I can... Helping feed romex through holes in the ceiling and walls, taking off outlets, sealing wires with wire nuts, watching lights go off and yelling to Chris that he's found the correct breaker, and comforting him when he shocks himself with 110 volts (only happened once).  The rest is up to Chris, with some phone consultation from my cousin Bobby, my dad, and his dad.

The plan is somewhat complex, but to sum it up, here's what we have to rewire for:

• General Lighting - We're going from 1 ugly fluorescent light, 2 halogen can lights (which we installed), and fluorescent under-cabinet lighting to 8 LED can lights on the perimeter, 2 pendant lights above the island, and LED under-cabinet lighting.  The complicated part is that these are all on 3-way switches (meaning you can turn them on from 2 diff. locations) and a dimmer on the LED can lights to set the mood. .
• Move the 220v circuit that powers the oven to the other wall.
• Add additional wiring and outlets to our new wall of cabinets.
• Run new wiring for 2 breakers for the microwave and range hood.
• Move lots of outlets and switches around to accommodate for our new plans.

We've worked on the electrical for about 1 1/2 weeks now which means lots of crawling around and getting itchy in the attic for Chris.  It also means a lot of us yelling through the ceiling - push the black one up, okay pull the yellow one through until the tape comes through, is it enough to reach the box with a little extra?...etc.  The nuisance is that we only have a few hours of daylight after work so when we turn the breakers off we're in the dark for awhile, working via headlamp, work lights, and candlelight.  Oh... and resetting all the clocks basically every day.

We call him Cyclops.  This is where the fluorescent light was.

3-way wiring diagram - seems so simple, right?!?!

This is the front wall of cabinets - we added the upper outlets.

Wiring for an outlet and back porch light/switch

We've spent a pretty penny on Romex...

Breaker box in the garage.  Plus an Old School Shiner calendar we found at my Great Aunt and Uncle's and a poster of a studly running back.  Go Tigers.

A somewhat "major" problem we discovered... Initially, the wiring to the outlet below the gas cooktop was wired for a 220v range and at some point it was remodeled and split into 2 breakers, both 110v with 2 hot wires, one ground, and no neutral.  This = bad idea = dangerous.  So Chris fixed that, which meant going into the main breaker panel outside and putting in new conduit, wiring, etc.  Had to be extra careful here.  Getting shocked at the main breaker would be considerably more serious than a little jolt from a light switch.  Even Chris won't let himself work on it without me beside him, watching.

Being very, very careful...

New copper wiring going in...

As you can see, our house is wired with aluminum.  It was built in `71 which fell in a small window where aluminum wiring was used instead of copper.  We updated all the outlets inside to make this safer, but like my dad said - If there haven't been any electrical problems at this point, 40 years after the house was built, the aluminum wiring isn't really a safety concern.

That flexible conduit at the top outside the box is what we added and ran through the attic to the cooktop area.

That's the area with all the new copper.

Just a sampling of all the little lizard skeletons we found in the main breaker box... poor little guys didn't know what hit `em.

the small stuff

We didn't sweat it.

Here are a couple of the mini-projects that had to be done to accommodate our new layout.

Consultation from Pops - talking plumbing and HVAC.

Blue tape on the ground is where the island will go.

There are 2 vents in the room - one in the middle of the former kitchen by the fridge, which stays.  This one will be right in the middle of the island of the new kitchen. So we're moving it over so it'll be more functional and more evenly spaced in the room.

Goof.

The vent in the foreground will be covered; the one in the background is the new one Chris and Roscoe put in, complete with a new box, flexible duct, etc.

The new cabinets will go almost to the door, just to the right of the light switch.  So we have to move the thermostat into the hall.

Thermostat's future home.  Using rope with wiring attached to it.  Feeding it to the alarm panel opening to get it there. 

Our thermostat's new home.  We call this the command center. (Oh and next to it is the Serenity Prayer that Amy's grandma cross-stitched for me... so sweet.)