Living in an area with a lot of older homes, and being widely renowned for my vintage home repair expertise (if only in my own mind), I have ample opportunities to hone my character-rectification skills. Recently, I got a call from homeowners seeking advice on whether to repair or replace one of the three columns supporting their porch roof; the column had quite a bit of rot, and several floor-to-ceiling splits (that would be REPLACE). While there, my eagle eye, keenly attuned to potential safety and/or style discrepancies, noted two corroded, ungrounded, uncovered outlets, which had probably been installed in honor of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s inauguration. [click to continue…]
Electrical
Bad wiring. It’s something just about every homeowner discovers somewhere at some point. In our case, I found a multitude of wiring issues. Please tell me who thinks it’s a good idea to fill a ceiling box with live wires and newspaper before plastering over it? Or create a junction of wires without a junction box, inside a wall cavity? It’s like they were trying to burn the house down! To make a long story short, the combination of dubious wiring jobs and a vintage home has meant a lot of electrical projects around the casa. After several dozen too many trips to the circuit breaker box, I contacted Ideal to see if they had a solution for locating circuits. They sent out their Automatic Circuit Identifier, model #61-534, which we promptly put to work to ease the chore of locating specific circuits. [click to continue…]
Here’s a holiday riddle for you. What do you get when you combine wind power, over 100,000 light bulbs, 21 dedicated electrical circuits, four volunteer traffic controllers and Christian zeal, all in a formerly quiet neighborhood in Utah? One seriously kick-ass light show! This thing makes our local Christmas tree lane look like a Lite Brite toy. [click to continue…]
I don’t know about you, but my husband and I have a lot of gadgets. Off the top of my head, between us we have an iPod Touch, an iPod Mini, an iPhone, a Blackberry, a Flip camera, two laptops, a digital camera, a Nintendo DS, and a couple of Koboos (Canadian eReaders). Consumer, thy name is Jen. [click to continue…]
The extent of my experience with lighting pretty much ends at an uncanny knack for getting electrocuted. Eight times and counting, folks. At this point, I’m just waiting for the big one. Maybe I’ll be able to speak Italian when I regain consciousness. (Or, does that only happen after surviving a lightning strike?) This is probably why Pottery Barn recommends hiring a professional electrician to hard wire their Mayfair Sconce. [click to continue…]
