On Shelves and TV Mounts

Wow, long time no blog, huh?  Much of the reason is because I’ve started a new job with a place called Prime Controls.  We program PLCs (the things that controls pumps and stuff at water/wastewater plants, oil rigs, and even Dr. Pepper!).  It a completely new field to me and its taking a while to get into the swing of things.

But enough about that!  As the title says this is about shelves and TV mounts.  Amy and I have constantly been working on the TV location since we moved into our home.  The only place for it really is on the fireplace, but there are lots of things in the way there. 

So the first thing we did was take the mantle down.  It protruded far away from the wall meaning the TV had to sit on the very end of the TV stand.  One good push from the cat would knock that TV right off to its untimely demise.

With the mantle gone things were good for a while.  The TV could sit far back on the stand and was safe from curious cats.  But the area itself  still created a lot of clutter.  Wire were strewn all about, the stand itself was large and detracted from the natural feel of the fireplace, it just didn’t work for us.

Ideas were tossed all around, we considered knocking a hole in the wall next to the fireplace and making a recessed shelf area where all the equipment could sit so we could get rid of the stand and mount the  TV, but we didn’t want to do anything so drastic to the home.  It didn’t really seem like the kind of thing that was good for the resale value of a home one day. 

Suddenly it came to us.  We already can’t use the fireplace because the TV is in the way (and because we had covered up the hole with Plexiglas to cut down on drafts), so why not build a shelf in the fireplace to hold the equipment?

But no no, it wasn’t enough to just slap some wood in there and call it a shelf, I wanted to maximize the space available to me.  So I talked to a co-worker (and the guy who got me this job), Colin, on how I should cut the wood to get it angled right (he’s been doing a lot of wood working too, so I knew he’d know) and lo and behold, this is the final product!

Yes, I packed it to the hilt with electronics!  But the best part of all, it Amy made a curtain for it to cover it all up!  So with the TV mounted it now looks like this:

  Yes for whatever reason when this house was made 30 years ago they put the fireplace off to the right instead of centering it.  We decided to center the TV on the wall rather than over the fireplace.  It’s hard to tell, but off to the left, behind the wedding photo is a little white cord cover that is filled to capacity with wires.  All in all, Amy and I are quite pleased with the way it turned out, it really brings our living room up to a much more modern condition and feels… adultish rather than college dormish.

On Shelves and TV Mounts

Does Anyone Else Hear the Sound of Water?

This Super Bowl weekend brought the following things:

1) An embarrassment to Jerry Jones as his ultra elitist stadium failed to have enough seating for everyone he sold tickets to (not to mention all the sound, and operations issues)

2) An embarrassment to Texas as our power grid couldn’t handle the influx of people and cold weather at the same time

3) The sound of rushing water and an impromptu lake forming out in my garage

That’s right, when the weather finally warmed up on Sunday, Amy and I were shocked to find that a pipe in our garage burst.  Fortunately, it was not attached to the water heater, but rather it led to a faucet in the backyard.  I had placed one of those nifty faucet covers over it, but apparently it just wasn’t enough to protect this poor little guy.

When we finally discovered the leak it had accumulated about 2-3 inches of water in our garage.  Thankfully, our garage is a step or two lower than the rest of our home so the only thing that got wet was some concrete floors.  After turning off the water to the house and sweeping the water out of the garage I discovered some interesting things.

The first was that the previous owner of this home clearly experienced this problem as there was replacement piece of drywall covering the exact location where the pipe had burst.

The second was a reconfirmation that the previous owner of this house, was not the handiest of men.  That or he always got his repairs done by the lowest bidder, which in this neighborhood is about 10 minutes east, you’ll find a group of very handy, hardworking men who will work dirt cheap all standing outside a gas station starting at 6 AM, and then bought sub-par parts for them to work with.

Here’s a picture of the pipe that burst. 

Now I’d like to point out that the shiny silver pipe in the wall is the faucet I purchased to replace this broken pipe and faucet.  I had to cut off the pipe at the elbow and sweat on a new piece (thanks again Mr. Pait for teaching me how to do that!).  Here’s a picture of the burst  pipe after the fact.

If you can’t tell, that pipe is paper thin, it’s really not the kind of pipe you should use in a location that is going to have to endure cold temperatures, but you could probably get away with it if you at least put some insulation around it.  It only costs 2 bucks for a six foot long section of copper pipe insulation, come on!

Regardless, in its place, I’m putting an anti-freeze faucet.  The concept with this faucet is that every time you turn the faucet off, it empties the pipe behind the faucet preventing the pipe from bursting from the cold (If you don’t quite get it, just google “Anti-freeze faucet)

Unfortunately, since I had to cut off some of the pipe, things didn’t quiet connect.  So I just brought the faucet inside the garage for a little bit until I have a Saturday when I can solder on a little extension.

The final thing Amy and I did this weekend was to take the mantel off the fireplace.  We have our TV there and the mantel is just in the way.  We were hoping to place it higher on the brick, but it turned out that rather than being attached via mason screws, they had actually replaced a layer of brick with wood and nailed into the wood.  So we decided just to put it into the attic until we leave the home or we decide we want it back.

We also decided that we wanted to prevent our cat from crawling into the fireplace, but didn’t want to shell out the bucks for a some sliding glass doors in front of it.  Amy mom’s had the excellent suggestion of putting Plexi-glass to cover the opening, a trip to Home Depot later and here’s the results!

(For those interested, other fun home projects Amy and I have done include putting lights in the attic, putting on a water heater blanket, and if the weather get’s warm and dry enough for us to finish it, rain gutters)

Does Anyone Else Hear the Sound of Water?

Circuits, Breakers, and Electricity. Oh My!

Amy and I are having a lot of fun doing home projects and getting everything just the way we want things.  Today, I was going to add a new circuit breaker to take power out to the front yard.  An area that is painfully lacking in an electrical outlet.

The plan, as always, was a simple one.  The pervious owners of this house had a hot tub (it was, thankfully, gone when we moved in).  I knew that dropping a new electrical wire would be a nigh impossible task with how full this circuit breaker box is, so we decided to simply high jack the electrical line that used to go to the hot tub.

Basically, we’d take the 30 AMP breaker that is presently in there and replace it with a 15 AMP breaker.  Then we’d take the electrical line that is sitting in the attic (attached to nothing, don’t worry) and simply attach the new line to the end of that line inside a junction box.

That’s when I was introduced to a type of breaker called Zinsco.  They look like this

They are also HORRIBLY outdated.  They are also, and more importantly, against electrical codes due to a design flaw in which the circuit breaker's connection to the bus bar becomes loose, causing arcing and subsequent overheating.

How did I find all this out?  I went to Home Depot where a kindly associate pointed me to the replacement breaker that cost 70 dollars!  OUCH!

The long story short is that I was able to purchase a replacement on eBay for 7 bucks and will continue this project in a couple weeks.  In the long run, I will need to replace the entire panel, but that’s a very expensive (though only slightly more than how much Home Depot would have charged me for the breaker) and timely, so it will be a project for much letter.

Ironically, however, I’m thinking about changing my mode of attack for putting an electrical outlet out there.  Where before I was going to drop the line through a water proof pipe out of my attic down the side of my house and into a waterproof outlet box.  I’m thinking that a better option may be to actually just boor a whole in my outer brick wall and tap into an outlet in the guest bedroom.

Then I’ll just flush mount the waterproof outlet and it will look significantly nicer.  It’s not like I need a huge AMP rating on this outlet either.  I literally just need an outlet out there to hook my weed eater up.  The only other things on this circuit (Amy and I mapped all the circuits last week) are the outlets in the guest room and 2 in the office and 2 in the master bedroom.  So unless I decide to hook a ridiculous amount of high Amperage equipment to each outlet at once, tapping in to the preexisting outlet should work just fine.

Any thoughts? (other than call Daniel’s father-in-law, our local electrician)

Circuits, Breakers, and Electricity. Oh My!

Sprinklers! (Part 3)

Not a to report on the sprinkler project took place yesterday. It rained the first part of the morning meaning I wasn’t able to really get started until almost 10:30. I was able to finish the tunneling under the wires with only a medium amount of frustration, so that was nice. The rain made the ground a little more workable and the heat a LOT more tolerable so that was a nice side affect of the rain.

Once the tunnels were burrowed, it was just a matter of laying the pipe down and gluing it all together. It was rather surprising just how much time it took to glue the pipe all together. Hopefully, I’ve done a good job and everything will stick!

I was also able to get the controller installed in the garage and the wires stretched out to the valves, I’ll hook the valves up to the wires first thing this morning. Here’s a list of the remain tasks.

1) Attach valve wires

2) Test system for leaks.

3) Attach Sprinklers

4) Cover up trenches

5) Install Rain Detector ( still might have to be delayed since it gets installed on the roof)

There’s not a lot to show visually about the difference from yesterday to today, so here’s a picture of the remaining parts in my house.

Sprinklers! (Part 3)

Sprinklers! (Part 2)

I realized I hadn’t posted the above photo before on the blog yet and today seemed like a rather appropriate day to do so.  The sign comes from my Grandfather Bennett’s (nick-named “Benny”) garage.  A couple year back us Grandkids were given an option to have any one thing of their grandparent’s that they just really desired.  It was, of course, a time in which everyone was saying something along the lines of “well, if no one else really wants this then….” For me, the sign in the garage was definitely what I desired.

My grandpa was well known to us for making stuff out of junk.  He’d take old pipes and such and make the most amazing things (Like a playground for us grandkids).  Anyway, I felt it would be rather appropriate to tag this projects I do with the above photo since I inherited a lot of his “I can build that” attitude.

So, yesterday saw phase 3 of the project (with phase 1 being the research, planning, and presentation for approval, and phase 2 being the last post about tapping into the water line).  I called up a local (and free) business that came out and marked all the lines that were in my yard (electricity, phone, cable, etc).  With the lines properly marked, I laid out my parts and went over my plans one last time to make sure I had everything.  Here’s a picture of the parts I’m using (minus the parts I used in part 1, and 620 Ft of PVC pipe)

Convinced that I had all the connectors, couplers, glue, and controllers I needed, it was time to head out to Home Depot and rent a machine I affectionately refer to as “The Beast”

This thing took three full-grown men to lift it into the back of my dad’s truck.  My neighbor, Mr. Stroope,  and I managed to impair its decent just enough to not destroy the driveway getting it out of the truck.  It is a wonderful machine though.  Rather than having to dig every last inch of trench myself (a nightmarish task), “The Beast” would dig a perfect, 2-inch wide, variable depth trench with the dirt laid up in a pretty little line right next to it.  It was, however, a beast to pull (because you couldn’t push it, you had to pull it) and I was quiet worn out by the time I had dug all my trenches.

I had hoped to get the whole project completed in one day, and at first focused on digging the trench for one zone than laying out the piping for the zone.  I realized after the first zone was complete, however, that I was really needed to focus on getting the trenches dug completely so I wouldn’t have to worry about renting “The Beast” a second day.  Mr. Stroope was very impressed with the machine and I personally think he’ll invent some reason in the near future to let him rent and play with it himself in the near future.

At the end of the day, I had accomplished the following on the sprinkler project

1) Attached the sprinkler system to the water supply

2) Dug the trenches for all the zones

3) Laid out the pipe for half the zones.

Here’s some photos of my very own Maginot line.

Side Yard (Zone 1 and Water Supply)

Back Yard (Zone 2)

Back Yard (Most of Zone 3)

Front Yard (Zone 4)

My Anti-siphon Valves that Control the Zones

Though this project has been largely “McCormick’s Law” free, I have encountered two problems.  The first is all the Cable/Phone lines that cut straight through my backyard.  The solution is simple in theory.  You simply buy an attachment for going under sidewalks glue it onto a length of PVC pipe, hook it onto a water hose, and let the water pressure burrow your way to success.  There are two problems with it though.  The first is it has a tendency to go… askew.  Primarily, that means down, but it also means left or right.  In one of the burrows I did, I went down by about… 4 inches and too far left by 2 inches.  It may sound like nothing, but it really adds up in a project like this, especially when you have no true method of finding the errant other than blindly digging.  The other was hitting rocks, water pressure just won’t cut through rocks as quickly as I need it to.  The second issue I encountered was this:

Don’t see the issue, let’s zoom in a little.

That funny little black thing is a TV cable.  One of two cables right next to each other that Time Warner failed to mark for me.  It specifically leads to my internet.  I’ll call them up tomorrow and have them come fix it after I lay my pipe there.  Since they failed to mark it, I’m not liable for it’s destruction, fortunately.  Also fortunately, I was able to hook up to a non-damaged outlet and keep internet in the house! 

Total time of the project so far (times include mid-projects trips to Lowes/Home Depot to get missing items):

Thursday: 4 Hours to cut through old pipe and solder on new pipes)

Saturday: 12 Hours

Monday’s Tasks:

1) Finish laying out pipes (Zones 3 and 4).

2) Test system for leaks.

3) Attach Sprinklers

4) Install Controller

5) Cover up trenches

6) Install Rain Detector (might have to be delayed since it gets installed on the roof)

Sprinklers! (Part 2)

Sprinklers! (Part 1)

  The latest project that I’ve gotten to undertake recently is installing sprinklers around the house.  Several months ago I measured the area around the house for my dad.  Last week I was able to use those measurements to plan out the placement of a sprinkler system.  It’s been a long time desire of mine to get  a sprinkler system installed so we would be able to keep grass alive in the midst of these Texas summers.

After getting the plans laid out and getting the green light from mom and dad it was time to start with the water supply.

Here’s the old water supply line into the house.  I was rather glad to find it.  Originally I was going to tap into the supply inside the house, but then I noticed a strange little water meter box just to the side of the house… completely full of dirt.  Some minor digging revealed that it was the cutoff valve shown above.  The extremely beat up looking cutoff valve shown above.

The plan was simple, cut off the old pipe, solder on a new pipe with a T leading to the sprinkler system.  Then McCormick's law kicked in. (I made McCormick’s law, it states: The easier a project should be the longer it will take).  The first problem I encountered was the beat up pipe.  I tried to use pipe cutters on it, but all they did was crush the pipe (it was REALLY cheap/old piping) so I had to dig out a larger area to allow the use of a hack saw on the pipe.  Once I finally got the pipe off, I realized that I had to make my cuts further back than I had originally planed due to some major pinches in the pipe I noticed.  My original plan wasn’t going to work, I needed some couplers. So after my 2nd trip out to Lowe’s today (the first happened when I first got up to get some plumber’s bread), I was ready to solder it up.  I had a full can of MAPP-Pro gas and plenty of flux, it should have been easy, right?

About half an hour later and some Google searches on “how to use MAPP gas” I discovered a link to the torch head I was using.  Turns out the torch head was incompatible with MAPP gas.  Oops.  3rd trip back to Lowe’s later and the correct torch head (which was more expensive) and I was now ready to get soldering.  I had meant to take more pictures, but once I got back with the right head, everything just went FLYING.  So here’s the final product.  And best part, there’s no leaks!

Sprinklers! (Part 1)

The Bathroom Project Part 3 - Getting up to half a bathroom

Following the last picture, mom grouted the floor and we let everything set for a week while everyone was out of town. This weekend, we were rearing and reading to get a usable bathroom at this end of the hall. We started Friday night hoping to quickly set the toilet before it was bed time. If you look at the last picture of the previous post, you may notice a white circular object sticking up out of the floor. This is called the flange, it's the part that connects the toilet to the drainage pipe. Or in plainer terms: it is the bridge that keeps your waste from leaking on it's way to the sewer.

Though I forgot to mention it, the previous flange that was in there, was cracked and had to be replaced. If the previous person had installed it correctly, this would have been no problem, but instead of screwing the flange to the floor, they glued it into the pipe. Meaning I had to take a hammer and chisel to that... nasty, nasty bridge and break it out piece. by. piece. I was, therefore, committed to installing it correctly and screwed it down nice and tight. See?



Only one problem. See those nice straight lines in the tile going from the bottom left to the top right? They needed to be touching the end of that bolt hole, not the middle. If you ever look under a flange, you'll see how there's a little plastic ridge that goes to just before the end of that bolt hole. It's purpose is to catch the bolt so that it does not twist as you try to tighten the nuts on top of the toilet. Oops. We press on. Long and very frustrating story short, the bolt turned sideways as we were attempting to secure the toilet and popped right out of the hole. Furthermore, for some reason the wax ring that sit on top of the flange to further insure no leakage was not smushed at all meaning that the toilet was not resting on the flange like it's supposed to. It was then that mom realized that the flange was supposed to be at floor height, not sunken in as you see it.

Though we called it quits for the night, we did, quiet fortunately, already have the solution for this, back when we were doing the backer boards almost 3 weeks ago, we had the foresight to buy an extension kit for just such an outcome. So it was that first thing Saturday morning, we installed the flange kit, and seated the toilet. Things were looking up until we found that after all that hard work, the toilet tank was cracked. Though we were at first worried that this meant we were going to have to buy a whole new toilet, a nice employee at Lowe's helped us find a replacement for just the toilet tank! Replacing the old, cracked tank for the new (shorter) tank was a simple job and we finally had a working toilet... albeit no sink or door at this point.


The installation of the vanity bottom went well. We decided to caulk behind it so water wouldn't be able to seep into the walls and discovered that we only had gray caulk. Fortunately this area is completely covered by the vanity so we caulked it gray and pressed on. At this point mom left to go see my 3 day old niece, Alyssa Faith Bennett, and left me to install the sink and vanity top.

It was a largely easy affair. The only hold up was on of the water lines that went from the pipe to the faucet could no longer reach since the new vanity is about 4-6 inches higher than the old one. This also meant that the drain pipe from the sink did not reach to the drain pipe going into the wall. One last quick Lowe's run (it's an exit from our house) allowed me to purchase the solutions to both these problems, and once mom got back we were able to silicone glue the vanity top to the bottom. Here's the result:



I was also able to replace the light, but I didn't bother taking a picture of that. So what's left you ask?

1) Caulk the tub
2) Caulk the space where the wall meets the floor
3) Put on base boards
4) Put up shower curtain
5) Put up towel holders
6) Any other little things my sister wants to do that I am unaware of.

We've done a really nice job so far. The one and only draw back I'm seeing right now is that it's a much louder bathroom now. That make things a little embarrassing for the people trying to use it!

The Bathroom Project Part 3 - Getting up to half a bathroom

The Bathroom Project Part 2 - Flooring woes

I learned an important lesson about measuring tapes while working on the floor. Any increment greater than 1/32 is not only an unneeded amount of accuracy, but also exponentially increases the likelihood of measuring the area incorrectly. I also learned that a jigsaw blade that can cut backer board is worth 100 backer board cutting knives. On my first attempt, I opened the knife I had purchased (with my parents money of course, I'm just helping on the manual labor) and proceeded to war against the backer board. The directions claim that two swipes of the knife was more than sufficient to cut the board. I assure you it is not. But I struggled and toiled with that knife for an hour. And having finally cut the board I bent over to pick it up, only I failed to notice that the tip of my foot was over the board and as I lifted, I broke that board right down the middle.

That, however, was not the end of the woes! For we were willing to have the broken board be the base. It's not like a single piece was going to cover that area anyway, one extra split wasn't going to hurt anything. That's when I learned that a mark ever 1/64 of an inch of a tape measure was just too many marks. I was anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 of an inch off my cuts. Now, the way the floor in that bathroom is makes the length of the board extremely important. The floor slants up from the door to about 2 feet into the room, then from that point back down to the tub. Any backer board or tile lain over this crest would quickly crack. So it was that I went back to Lowe's, purchased another backer board to replace the one that was now worthless as well as this little beauty.


It's a carbide jig saw blade. I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but rather than have teeth like most saws, it's blade is covered in... well carbide I guess. And it makes quick work of that backer board. So it was that armed with this blade, and a better tape measure, I was able to quickly measure and cut the three backer board pieces to cover the bathroom floor. It was perfect.

Of course, I had yet to secure them to the floor. Which is where we hit our next major snag. The concrete screw heads where square. That's right, they were not flat head nor philip's head screws but square heads. After a lot of searching, my mom and I were able to find a screw for the power dill that would mostly fit the square heads. It started out well enough, but for those who don't know, turns out screwing through concrete is hard work. Hard work made even harder by a dill head that kept wanting to come loose and make my square holes circular. But we did manage to get them all screwed down and the floor started looking pretty nice.


Here you can see the three pieces I used with a hole cut out for the toilet flange. You can also see how we cut them to follow that crest I was talking about. With the backer board down, we were able to apply the final coat brown coco paint and prepare to lay down the tile.

Later, as we were inspecting the floor one last time before laying down the tile, we realized that a lot of the heads were not flush with the backer board. Without the heads being all the way flush, it was very likely the tile would shift and crack as people walked on them. The problem was further exacerbated as we could not find the square bit we had been using. Finally, I decided that it would be better just to run over to Lowe's and buy the right sized bit to do the job right. It was as I read the box of screws to see what size I should get that I noticed the following


No, no, look closer


Yes, there in rather plain, "hey I'm just part of the bar code or quantity " text were the unimpressive words "Free square drive bit" All the time I was drilling in those screws wishing I had the right bit, it had been in that box, hidden down underneath all those screws. Fortunately, after replacing about 1/3 of the screws I had down, it was a relatively simple process for mom to lay down the tile such that my back board went from what you saw above to


that. And finally to

The Bathroom Project Part 2 - Flooring woes

The Bathroom Project Part 1 - Introduction

Merriam Webster defines project as "a specific plan or design" and that's a pretty okay way of defining it, but over the course of the bathroom project, I have my own definition of project. "Project: a related series of snafus that result in a (hopefully) desirable outcome". A year ago, a bad hail storm came through my area. As a result our insurance company paid for a new roof and paint job. Additionally, it was discovered that the damage to the roof caused by said hail storm the "kids' bathroom" ceiling, wall, and tub was damaged and the insurance company was going to cover the replacement costs.

So it was that at the beginning of summer my mom decided to make good on a promise she gave Emily years and years ago that she could redo the bathroom however she wanted to (within reason). Together the two of them began to conspire over the details of this new bathroom. The two of them finally decided on what tile to use about half way through the summer, and about a month and a half ago, the bathroom project officially began with a construction crew removing the tub, fixing the ceiling, installing the new tub, and installing the new tile. With their work completed, it now fell to us to finish the job. After all, we could never afford a new bathroom if they did all the work, but if we did it all a shiny new bathroom would be ours!

It began with the loss of the toilet. It was a heavy loss for me. Literally, I had to carry that sucker out of there and porcelain is quiet weighty. It was quickly followed by the removing of the vanity, tile, and wallpaper in rapid succession. Usually when someone talks about a house having 1 and 1/2 bathrooms they mean one bathroom only has a toilet and sink, ours only had a shower. This bathroom remained in this state of limbo for a couple weeks while Emily deliberated over what color paint to use. Two coats of killz and one coat of brown coco later, my mom and I realized that before applying the final coat of brown coco, we should lay down the concrete backer board that was necessary for the tile to adhere to or else we were going to rip up her nice paint as we wedge these concrete board in to the room. And just like that, the snafus came marching in two by two!

The Bathroom Project Part 1 - Introduction

Fan Project Part 3

If you didn't see Part 2, I posted it just before this one, so go check it out.

With the wires now successfully in place. It was time for the easy part: hanging the fan itself. It was an extremely simple task as anyone who has done it before can tell you. I had a little interesting time since I had three feet of extra electrical wire sticking down the ceiling, but after stuffing the spare wire back up into the attic, it was just a couple of quick twist to get the power hooked up to the fan wires

Hide the wires


Attach the blades


And install the lights (hey look, someone is looking at blogger on that computer monitor)

And voila! A completed fan project. It was much to my joy that when we switch power back onto the rooms, that the light switch on the wall controlled the lights on the fan, but not the fan blades themselves (which was what I was trying to do). This way we can turn the lights off at night and leave the fan running. Total project time: about 12-15 hours. It was a lot of fun, but I'm not going back into the attic any time soon!

Here's a picture of the view of mine and Emily's room with the fan's running (not that you can tell since my flash drowns out the light and fan motion) ... and the mess that I call my work space.

Fan Project Part 3

Fan Project Part 2 and car mayhem

So having installed the fan box, it was time to install the electrical wiring. My initial hope was to drop the wire down the wall to where the light switch is and draw power from there. This would have given me the added benefit of making the switched outlet in my room an outlet with constant power (like all the rest in my room). After spending time in the attic, however, I quickly realized that would never work. So Emily got the idea to feed the line up to the attic, a fantastic idea that also proved impossible. So it's getting to the hot part of the day, but I've already cut a wire up in the attic, I can't turn power back on until I get this fixed. I finally just did a quick patch and stumbled out of the attic practically passing out. Not a fun experience.

Fortunately, I did figure out what I needed to do after consulting our local electric handyman, and my brother's father-in-law, Mr. Pait. Here's the problem. I have these power wires in the attic that are cut exactly to the right length; no slack what-so-ever so them. so if I cut it, I cannot reconnect it, it just can't be done. So what I had to do ultimately was to cut the wire and then install a junction box for the left side of the wire to go into all for the sole purpose of attaching additional wire to connect to a second junction box where the right side of the wire would connect to as well as the wire that would go down to the fan. Here's a VERY simplistic drawing of what happened.
So the long story short is that since I was doing a wire for the lights and a wire for the power I had to do the above picture four times. That's 8 junction boxes (and junction box covers). 20 junction box fittings to cover the hole where the wire went in (it keeps flammable stuff from getting in the box). 16 screws to keep the junction boxes in place, 24 wire caps, 4 segments of wire to connect one junction box to the other and 4 segments of wire to take it from the junction box to the fan itself. It took about an hour for each of these with an hour break when I was half way done. But God was EXTREMELY merciful to me in that He gave me a glorious overcast day to be in the attic. Here's a picture of the end result from the room (I'm not about to take my camera into that attic!)



After I got the wiring done (around noon). I showered and met up with Amy for a long promised clothes run. See, she and I have differing opinions on how long clothes should last. I say until they too full of holes to be worn, and she says once they start getting ugly they should be changed out. Oh, my girl and her crazy ideas.

So we hit up Khol's and Target and get 3 pants and 6 shirts for about a hundred dollars. I'm a very good clothes shopper. After Target the exhaustion from the heat in the attic and the physical demands of being up there catch up with me and we call it a day (1 hour after beginning). We try to go to her parent's house, but the A/C was being repaired and I wasn't feeling great about the heat. Amy, being my ever watchful and caring girlfriend, decides that we should head out to Blockbuster and get me out of the heat. I ask her to drive and as we're leaving her neighborhood we look at each other and go "does something sound funny to you?"

Turns out it was the rear passenger tire that was sounding funny. Flat funny. Fortunately, Amy was able to pull over into some shade and a half hour latter, we headed back to her house with a donut spare. The evening did get better after that though. The A/C was fixed and it cooled off rapidly. Then Amy's parents treated us to dinner at this fun little Greek restaurant (the hamburgers were excellent!). It was a truly fun experience.

Fan Project Part 2 and car mayhem

Internet resolutions and Fan Project part 1

To follow up on the last post, I was finally able to get the internet problem resolved. After countless of calls ending in "call Linksys" or "call Time Warner" I finally learned two things:

1) Linksys had the firmware to fix the entire mess but refused to give it to me because they only give it to ISPs (call Time Warner).

2) Time Warner Cable (aka Road Runner High Speed Internet) also had the firmware but refused to give it to me because they used special software and lacked the ability to manually give me the firmware, but it's possible the maker of my router had the firmware I needed (call Linksys).

Now, I've been using cable internet since it was called AT&T Broadband Internet (ATTBI), then Comcast bought it out, and I will forever consider them the people I had to most reliable service with, and now Time Warner has bought THEM out! Feh.

I called my school today and an Arab girl picks up and asks me who I'm trying to call in a very thick accent. My first thought was to say "Don't you people get a job doing anything other than answering phones poorly?!", but I quickly stifled that thought because it was racists, rude, and only brought on by how many times I had called my American based company and got sent overseas to some people who didn't know the first thing about my router.

Oh, the final solution, by the way, was to have Time Warner give us a new modem (for free!) and then shell out 50 bucks for a new Linksys wireless router (did I mention I'm a big Linksys fan?).

So enough with the geek talk.

I've started a fan project at my parents house. Since we have moved in to this home, some 19 years ago, we have lamented the fact that the bedrooms completely lack a ceiling light... or any light. There is a single wall outlet controlled by a light switch, but who wants to waste space with a floor lamp? Besides, those things don't spreed light well.

Last week, my mom expressed the desire to save some money in the house by raising the thermostat and getting some floor fans in the rooms. Again, who wants to waste space like that? So I did some research, priced it out, and presented a plan to install ceiling fans in mine and my sister's room. A task made hard mainly since there's no place to install a ceiling fan.

So today I got the green light from mom on the fan to buy (with a light kit for light of course) and after dinner I jumped on into the attic to install a fan box to mount the fan from. It seemed like an easy enough project: I cut the hole in the ceiling, find that hole in attic, put the box in place, and screw it down. That's when the snags hit.

I had wisely opted to bring a board into the attic to set my tools down on, but maneuvering through that tiny space while holding a board... not so easy. But I do make it to where my room is only, hey where the hole? Snag #1.

No problem, I brought a very nice walkie talkie up there with me, I'll call mom and have her tap on the ceiling next to the hole, but hey what's this? My Walkie is missing! Snag #2.

I make it back to the ladder leading back into the house and find that my walkie fell off before I even got up there. Oh well, I didn't have all the tools anyway, I grab the walkie, the tools and head back on up with my mom waiting in my room to tap on the ceiling with a cane. After an arduous trek to my room, I find the cane sticking out of the sea of insulation. Only there's a little problem I'm going to have to get flat on my stomach to get out there since I'll have a couple inches of clearance even with lying down. Snag #3

Fortunately, I did have that board with me and I am able to lie on it between the rafters and not come crashing through the ceiling. So I clear out the insulation from around the hole and find that while I am between two rafters (the way I wanted it), there is this random plank of wood that comes down diagonally from the right and crosses right over my hole. Snag #4.

Again, God is merciful and I have just enough room to fit the fan box (and the rod it connects to) under the plank of wood. I line the box up with my beautiful little hole and discover that I forgot to account for the direction the box would be oriented when I cut my hole and am now trying to force a square box down a round hole (figuratively speaking of course). Snag #5.

After working it around, I'm able to get the box in correctly and attempt to screw it on home. Only problem is the drill is too big and I can get the screws in with the box attached to the rod. Snag #6.

At this point, I'm exhausted, hot, and full of fiber glass insulation. But I'm determined to get this done! So I take off the fan box from the rod and focus solely on getting that rod firmly attached to the rafters on either side of it. After all, the rod is what truly holds the weight of the fan and it is vital that it is secured tight. Meanwhile, my mom is down in my room being a wonderful mother and handing me anything I need while forsaking her own project of working on the kids' bathroom.

After countless attempts of getting that blasted rod oriented correctly, I manage to screw it on home and move the board back so I can easily grab it the next time I'm up there and move it ever so slightly over to Emily's room. With a final mighty burst of energy I work my way back across the attic only to see my mom waiting for me with Snags # 7, 8, and 9.

Turns out I failed to properly comprehend the pervasiveness of insulation. A good amount fell out of my ceiling onto the floor which mom cleaned up. (Snag #7), another portion fell out onto Emily's bed which I had attempted to cover up, but failed miserably (Snag #8), and finally, some insulation had fallen out and gotten over some of the clothes in the closet the ladder comes down into (Snag #9). Oops, sorry mom. Mom is forgiving and only insists that I clean up the floors and move the bed out of Emily's room before I get started again tomorrow.

So I shower up, I'm just pouring sweat at this point, and traipse into my room to finish the job. After all, I had taken the box off the rod to get it in position. Oh did I mention Snag #10? Since I had removed the box, it looked like I was a little off on the position of the rod. Hilarious fun! Fortunately, I am able, with mom's help, to get the fan box attached from the bottom.

While telling dad about the problem with the drill afterwards, he sits there for a minute and says, "the screws should be hexagonal heads, why don't you use a socket and ratchet?" Rats, he's totally right.

The good news it that I did work out all the little kinks and Emily's doesn't have the plank so it should be significantly easier (especially since I'm bringing a socket and ratchet with me). Plus, there final project is looking VERY nice. See?



There is a little space around it where I had to rotate the box to get it properly oriented, but that is one nicely done job if I do say so myself! You can see where the electrical wire I'm laying down will come in to the box and give it some power. I'll take plenty of pictures and let y'all know how it goes! Soon, I'm gonna do a post about all my family and I have done project wise this summer, it's amazing!

Edit: I forgot to mention this, but the total time to install that? 3 hours. So VERY many painful snags!

Internet resolutions and Fan Project part 1