1045 Prince: June 2013

We know it has been a while since we last posted here, so we wanted to give you a quick heads up on our latest progress. We have been working hard to rewire the house top to bottom. In fact, we have severed the last circuit of knob and tube wiring, which meant we lived in the darkness upstairs for a few weeks. It sounds worse than it was honestly. Yes it is awkward to use the restroom in the middle of the night without lights on or to take a bath (we still don't have a shower) with candles, but there is also something fun about this. And the good news is that it is just temporary.

We had to be a little creative to run new wires inside plaster walls and ceilings, but it is amazing what you can do with just a 6 inch circular cutter attachment for the drill. We also have a 6 foot long drill bit that allows us to cut through several joists in a row to reach the center of a 12 foot long room. And of course, we can run new outlets on the ground floor from the crawl space underneath it and from the attic down to the second floor below it.

We are done adding outlets on the ground floor (minus the kitchen) and we only have two ceiling lights left to install on that floor (bathroom and family room). On the second floor, we have run new outlets to the master bedroom only so far, but we have added or replaced lights in 3 of 4 bedrooms and 2 of 3 bathrooms. In the attic, we have installed all new lights (2 chandeliers and 8 can lights), but we haven't installed new outlets yet. Overall, we are more than 50% done with the electrical upgrades and rewiring.

Believe it or not, the hard part is not the manual labor of running new wires or installing fixtures. The hardest part is shopping to find lights that are appropriate for the style of the house. Of course, most lights from Restoration Hardware or Rejuvenation would be perfect replicas, but they are so expensive and it is so much more rewarding to go treasure hunting and finding salvaged fixtures from the turn of the century. We have spent the last 2 months searching for lights. And we keep finding very interesting ones. Some of them we are not sure yet where they will go. Sometimes they need work like rewiring or replacing sockets, but in the grand schema of things, it is easy and inexpensive to do so.

So far we have found about a dozen light fixtures. I wish we knew where they came from. What room it used to be in? Who owned them? What city and state they came from? We know that we have some lights that come as far as Spain and Quebec. That just adds another dimension to the house that we are thrilled about.

Here are some pictures of the new lights: