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21 July 2005 — Bathroom Remodel: Part Three (with photos) (7)

Our bathroom remodel suffered a setback yesterday. Nic, our electrician, is in the hospital (not job related), and our contractor will have to bring in a substitute electrician. We hope Nic is okay — we like him and think he does quality work. (We also like Dale, our contractor, by the way.)

Though nothing exciting has happened since the last update, I thought I'd post some photos for those of you with questions. (That's you, Gates family.) Clicking on a thumbnail image below will open a larger image at Flickr. The larger images are annotated. (Annotation of images at Flickr is keen!)

As I mentioned before, most of the work over the past week has involved the electrical system. Over the weekend, Nic and his assistant, Maro, installed the service panel outside, and ran conduit above the roofline.

[photo of the new service outside]

Nic spent a lot of time working with the electrical panel inside the house. He said it was scary: piecemeal and poorly wired, probably installed sometime in the seventies. He groaned at one point to see garden hose used to insulate some spliced wires. "Do you mind if I take some pictures of this?" he asked. "I'm going to post them to an electricians weblog." (We'll post the link when he sends it to us.)

As Nic continued to work on the panel, he pointed out various problems. The house still has some knob-and-tube wiring. The outlets in the floor downstairs — especially in the kitchen — are a real hazard. The circuits make little sense (for example, all of the overhead lights downstairs are on a single circuit). "It's not even grounded," he said. As he works, Nic is fixing what he can. Unfortunately, we just can't afford to replace the entire electrical system right now; we'll worry about that in a couple of years.

We now have a new electrical panel in the basement. (The old one in the stairwell was a violation of several electrical codes.) A false wall was constructed to house the panel:

[photo of the new false wall in the cellar]

Here you can see evidence of Nic's meticulous wiring:

[photo of the new electrical panel]

I was alarmed to come home Monday night to find the wall between the stairway and the bathroom completely gone. I was even more alarmed to come home last night and find a large chunk of the bathroom floor missing.

[photo of the bathroom, with no wall!]

Though these gaping holes are scary now, they'll soon be replaced by better and stronger floors and walls. It seems that Dale is doing his best to upgrade the bones of our old house where he can.

Meanwhile: I haven't showered in three days. If I don't shower today (a possibility), then I won't shower for an entire week because I'm going camping this weekend.

A guy could get used to this...

Finally, here is the tub.

[photo of the bathtub in the garage, painted]

This is the second coat of paint. The first coat was a split-pea green that Kris had intended to use for both the clawfoot and the walls. I did not like the color. After a paint emergency, we found some colors we could agree on. Neither of us love them, but at least we're content with them.

Soon, I will be able to bathe again.

Holy cow. I can't believe I forgot. For Dad, ten years:

.

On this day at foldedspace.org

2004 — Nine Years Ago Today   Nine years ago today, we tumbled out of the vehicle, found our way to the building, our hearts filled with trepidation.

Comments
On 21 July 2005 (08:57 AM), Tiffany said:

I love the update photos. I must admit that the tub colors look a little like yellow and gray on my screen! I can not wait to see the bathroom. Are you sure it will complete by Christmas?? I can not go days without showering, I am far too smelly.


On 21 July 2005 (09:35 AM), Pam said:

I loved the Pam's print annotation! In fact, as we were driving away from your house on Tuesday, I turned to Mac and asked "how much room do you have in the trunk?"
"Why?" he asked.
"Well I should probably get that picture out of Kris and J.D.'s. garage."
Mac fired back, "Yeah, that's not happening tonight." And then he drove away.

Anyway, I do remember it's there. I hope it isn't getting in the way too much! :)


On 21 July 2005 (09:42 AM), alan said:

Be sure to check references:

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:OkOudn_XFcwJ:bluehole.org/2003/08/dont-ask-me-why.php++%22ryan%22+site:bluehole.org&hl=en&lr=&client=firefox-a&strip=1


On 21 July 2005 (09:42 AM), alan said:

sorry about that horrible link


On 21 July 2005 (09:48 AM), jenefer said:

It seems that original construction electricians are not the best. Like you, we have a really stupid electrical panel. Really just stupid combination of outlets on circuits. The entire front wall of the house, including three of the bedrooms and the wall of the living room that is common with the garage, are all on one circuit. When we asked for a quote on rewiring the house to change the combination of circuits, we just couldn't justify the cost. Instead, since we had additional unused circuits on the electrical panel, we had the electrician put in a few additional outlets in each room for heavy useage appliances and put them on their own circuit. It seems to be working well so far and not blowing out the circut when we have the hairdryer and heater and tv and computer all on at one time. Thanks for the pictures. Even though the colors are probably not very true on the computer, I like the new colors better. Compromise is what it is all about! If you hate it later, paint is the least expensive change you can make. We have repainted the living room and entry walls atleast 4 times in the last year. I think we are now happy with the colors. The laundry room and dining room/kitchen only took two tries to agree on. It is hard to tell whether you can live with a color without seeing it on the whole wall.


On 22 July 2005 (04:04 PM), Kris said:

Update-- Friday evening: We now have a completely new subfloor in the bathroom (another layer will be going over that as well, once the plumbing is roughed in). That should be strong enough for a cast-iron tub full of water and Jd. The studs for all the walls are in, looking newer and straighter than anything else in this house. Best of all, the electrician is back on the job. We're hoping, for his sake and ours, that he's feeling healthy and continues to improve. He'll be here Saturday to finish up some work. Next week, our main contractor will be away, but the plumber, cabinetmaker and electrician should all be working on various tasks. Sounds like we'll be showerless for a while more, but we're coping well (Thanks to Rhonda and Mike!) and are looking forward to the completion of the project! Kris


On 23 July 2005 (03:31 PM), Chris Gates said:

Obviously lots to do in addition to the obvious changes in the bathroom. While we talke about the circuit breaker panel during out visit, I had no idea that you were also going to move the meter and its box. Great pictures! You were correct about the wiring in the circuit breaker panel - it was a work of art. Happy to hear that Nic is fixing some problems as he goes along. Good luck with the rest of the project.

Oh yes, looking forward to seeing the repainted tub with the new wall color.


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