Sept 5th
Yesterday we worked really hard. I was way to tired to write anything about what we did and am not so sure I have the energy tonight either. I believe I have done more knee bends in the last few days than I have any other time in my life. I put in all the switch boxes this past week, Today in order to run the wire I had to drill holes through the studs. I am sure glad I am done with that. It was not a hard job but it is certainly rough on your knees. That is one of the reasons I did so many knee bends. Believe me it was not for exercise, I had to,to put in the switch boxes and to drill the holes. As I was drilling the holes Wayne and Gary followed behind me with the wire and pulled it through the holes to the switch boxes. We worked on all the rooms upstairs first, We did not seem to have much trouble with the outside walls. We have to get them done first to we can get the insulation put in. Then we went downstairs to do drilling and pull the wire through. We ran into one of our first issue that needed to be fixed before we could continue.
The bay window had some very badly rotten wood that Gary had to repair. He quit pulling wire an went right to work repairing the window. As you may see he got quite messy. His face was covered in dirt from the old rotten wood. Plus if I didn't mention before We have removed all the old insulation, (sawdust). Consequently it has been very hot working in the house. Especially since we have had a very warm summer. Mostly in the 80's and 90's this year. The good news the window is fixed and he gets to move onto the next downstairs issue. The back of the kitchen is going to be torn down and he needs to replace the drooping header and put up new beams.
Wayne and I continued working on running the wire. I drilled the holes and he pulled wire through. when I finished drilling all the holes I then stapled the wire into place as needed.
It was not all work we did take a lunch break, Gary and I had beefsteak sandwiches and Wayne had a corned beef sandwich at Papa Z's. Corned beef is one of my favorites I cannot for the life of me figure out why I did not order that instead and have been thinking about having one ever since. Anyway I digress this is not about what we had for lunch.
We worked hard all day and it was time for Wayne to leave and he told he would be back on Sunday what time would we be at the shop. Gary told him we would be there by 11:00 am. He left and we left shortly after. We were both pretty darn tired and grubby and still need to get more switch boxes and wood. We cleaned up had some dinner and headed off to Home depot in Tilton. We had to go to Tilton, which is about an hour and 10 minutes away because we bought out the West Lebanon home depot twice already of their supply of switch boxes. Lucky for us we got what we needed and made the hour drive back home. It was after 11 by the time we got to bed. My entire body was hurting. especially my left knee. I was sure glad Gary told Wayne we would not be at the shop until 11:00 (although I thought he said 10:00 and I thought we were late getting there but I was wrong).
Sunday Sept 6th
I put in some of the remaining switch boxes, that needed to go in and did some stapling, Wayne pulled more wire and Gary continued to fix the window. We were all fairly busy, but I seemed to be moving quite a bit slower, When Wayne left he told me what I needed to do to finish up I got most of it done but then I forgot what I was supposed to do with the wire. I think I was supposed to staple it across the beam but could not remember. I was to worn out to think. Not good. I have decided that tearing down plaster and slats is to say the least time consuming and dirty but a whole lot easier because you really do not have to think about it. But wiring the house you have to concentrate and when you are tired that can be a bit of a challenge. So I left the wire hanging I will wait till next Sunday to do with it what I am supposed to. When Wayne is back and he can tell me exactly what I am to do. Better to do it once correctly then guess and have to fix my mistake. I did however drill the holes he wanted me to drill. I did not forget where he want them he marked the spots with a red X.
Gary and I went home had dinner then Grant came down to the house to help us bring Gary's parents Barb and Paul down to the shop so they could see our progress. Grant took his parents home and Gary and I stayed behind to do some more work. Gary measured and cut the wood for the header in the kitchen. While he was doing this I scraped some of the outside paint stopping every once in a while to help him with a measurement or two. Finally he was ready to put up the header and I needed to help him. He held the header up and I hammered the side beams in to hold the header in place. It was not as difficult as I thought it would be. Earlier when he was cutting the old beam off he had a small but painful incident. He cut the old beam with the sawzall and the beam did not even budge stayed in place like it had not intention whatsoever of leaving with out a fight. Gary even walked away talked with me for a bit. He went back to the beam, just barely touched it and down it went with a crash hitting his toes on the way. OUCH. Luckily he did not break anything toes included. But the toes were bruised. Never fun to have these kind of issues but at least no one was seriously hurt. And the new beam is up.
Monday Sept 7th We went to the shop not so much to work on the shop, but to organize and clean up the messes we made in the past couple of days. As I mentioned earlier we were tired and pretty sore. Both of us have been looking forward to the rebuild process but now that it is here I can honestly saw taking apart has been easier so far. I am however learning some things I never imagined I would learn, Or would have cared to learn for that matter. I is rewarding to see the electrical get into place. We thought we would clean up and go home and have a relaxing day. Cleanup took us longer then we thought. It is done and we are ready for the next electrical adventure.
Tuesday Sept 8th
I spent most of the day on the phone with a company trying to order lighting fixtures I needed 15 insulated and 39 non insulated. No luck finally I found that I could get 53 insulated if I ordered them from home depot. The problem was they may take to long to get here. Anyway to shorten this whole deal I decided to drive to home depot in West Lebanon to see what they had. 0 non insulated but they ended up having 53 R5ICAT insulated in stock so I purchased them all, Now all I need is 1 more and I will have all that I need. We are ready for more hard work on Sunday. Of course that does not mean there is nothing left to do this week to get ready for Sunday because we have plenty of prep work.
