smacky and bucky

The woman put me to work this weekend. Big time. She took Friday off and when I got home from work she showed me all the items she'd purchased at the home improvement store. The old sink was too shallow so she purchased a deeper one. One problem: The pipes under the sink had to be shortened to accommodate this new sink. Second problem: The pipes had been cemented together and they were not coming apart. Solution: Use a hacksaw to cut loose the pipe assembly and take the entire assembly to Home Depot to pick matching pieces. I'm sure I looked funny to the more experienced folks, as I laid the new pieces on the floor of the store, matching the old assembled pipes.

But... who gives a shit? Because it worked! I lowered the pipes five inches and the new sink dropped in. By 11:30pm Friday night, I had finished installing the new sink and new kitchen faucet!

Now I could just relax the rest of the weekend... right? Well, no. The wife was going to paint the bathroom, and since she was painting, didn't it make sense to install a new light? Sure, except that when I removed the old standard chrome bar of globe lights, I discovered that the hole where the wire entered the wall was about 3 inches down and 4 inches to the right of being centered above the vanity. Tugging on the wire confirmed there was no slack in the wire. If we were going to move it, we'd need to replace it with a longer wire.

The wife said to call an electrician. I went downstairs and tried to figure out which wire led to the bathroom. I found it, and said, "I'll bet I can do this myself."

I went back to Home Depot and bought wire, wire strippers, and a line tester (looks like a pencil; touch it to the wire and it beeps if it's "live").

I traced the line to a junction box and found this:


The line to the bathroom is on the left. I was smart and took pictures each step of the way (hey, after the kitchen light debacle of a few weeks ago, I wasn't taking chances!).

I removed the old wire, like so:


Guess how I got the new wire in? I taped it to the old wire with a lot of duct tape and pulled it down from the basement as the wife fed the new wire into the wall in the bathroom. Luckily it worked like a charm!

(Oh, by the way, I turned off ALL the power to the house before I did anything. Safety first, kids!)

Upstairs in the bathroom I cut the new hole where the wire will go. So how did I get the wire from the old hole in the wall up to the new one (four inches over and 3 inches up)? To quote part of a classic line from Mommie Dearest: WIRE COAT HANGER! (Look up the reference; It's worth it.) I straightened the coat hanger, ran it into the new hole down to the old hole, twisted it around the new wire, then pulled the hanger out, bringing the new wire with it.

After that it was routine: black to black, white to white, ground to ground. Done.

I was beat on Sunday, and watched Terminator 2 and took a long nap. This morning I woke up with a sore throat and a headache and decided to call in sick. I slept, relaxed, and finished up the bathroom by installing towel hooks into the back of the bathroom door.

Productive weekend, but I was either working or asleep most of the time.

Sarah Connor Chronicles 2-hour season finale on now. Fingers crossed we get a second season. It is Fox, after all...