mole, here! it’s been a while since i’ve made a blog post. mathew has been giving me a much needed break from working on the house, but i still take photos and keep him company while he’s working. i also act as his “scrub nurse” when he’s “operating” on the house. i’m very good at retrieving tools, battery packs, ear protection, blah, blah, blah.
let’s get on with this post, mole-style: heavy on the photos, light on the text (because i don’t always know what i’m talking about!)
uh-oh,.. when the carpets are pulled up you know what this means, right?
HOLES in my living room floor! (right) mathew trying to figure out the next step.
(left) drilling for studs. (right) this is mathew’s way of figuring out the best place to cut so he doesn’t disturb joists or other important stuff. first he used his handy “wizard” tool to check for metal and joists (see 2nd photo at the beginning of the post. it’s an electronic gadget that beeps when it senses something.) mathew’s pencil marks show were the joist is and the drill holes are just to double check.
(left) the cutting begins! (right) seeing what’s what.
(left) no electrical here! oops. this hole was cut but it turned out it was in the wrong spot. mathew ran downstairs to remeasure the office to find the location of the office light. (right) here he’s opening up an old hole.
(left) with mathew downstairs in the office i’m waiting upstairs for instructions. a faint, tiny voice says “can you feed the wire through?” “okay,” says mole. (right) i wandered downstairs to see where that one went. it’s for my office light switch! he pulled out some old scary looking wire and replaced it with new wire. he’s also grounding it because my new light switch plate will be metal and i don’t enjoy being electrocuted.
(left) in the office, cutting the hole for the light junction box. (right) back upstairs cutting a pipe. was this from the old gas lights?
(left) time to go into the dark, hot, insulated crawl space. this is our permanent “door” behind a cabinet near our dining area. (right) now the “fun” begins… earlier mathew was cutting holes in the floor and saying “watch out for that hole!” um, they were pretty obvious,.. i wasn’t going to fall in. but that didn’t stop mathew from saying “mole in the hole!” now who’s fallen into the hole?
this was by far the most challenging part of the day. through this small-ish hole mathew would take a peek, then lie down and reach in with a crowbar tool to blindly remove old electrical tube and knob parts. his concentration was impressive and he removed all of them. turtle in the hole!
(left) this is what he was removing. they are ceramic tubes and knobs used for electrical wires a long time ago. he says he’s seen them at building resources. i can’t imagine anyone using them for electrical wiring now, so we can only guess that maybe artists find them useful. (right) the carpet has finally been reinstalled and i’m more than happy to reassemble my living room.
and today is april 1st, april fool’s day and my dad’s birthday! i think he already looked at the blog today, but hopefully he’ll see this tomorrow. happy birthday dad! i love you. (i think this photo was taken in 1977.)