I’ve been doing some lil things in our kitchen over the past *mumble-mumble* while. One of them was installing a new light ficture over the sink and finally having a switch for it instead of the 40-something-year-old pull chain that had been there since the house was cheaply urm, inexpensively built in the late sixties/early 70s (different reports from different folks, although I kind of think the builder’s estimation of when he built it is pretty close–late 60s).
It’s a modestly-sized house–a tad over 2,000 square feet, including the finished basement. Almost everything was built within acceptable norms for late 60s construction, and certainly as good as or better than much housing built in America’s Third World County during that era.
But.
The electrical system stinks. When we bought the house, not one single solitary 110 circuit in the house (two outside circuits were grounded–but they’d been added later) was grounded. Not one. As it stands now, individual circuits are now grounded–by “Jackleg Elektrokill”–and one has been pulled from the box (which was built to have/create grounded circuits!) with all new wiring as a properly grounded circuit. I hope to slowly morph the rest of the circuits in the same fashion as time goes on, but it’s a tedious process.
Anyweho, wiring the lighting fixture above the kitchen sink so that a typical light switch was now available meant, of course, wiring in a junction box, and that meant cutting a hole in the (otherwise useless, unused, lost space) soffit above the entire west side of the kitchen so that junction box could also serve as the primary attachment for the lighting fixture. (Long process cut short :-))
So far, so good. Just normal run-of-the-mill carpentry and electrical stuff. Then: junction boxes MUST be accessible for service, so I could NOT just reseat/patch the drywall over the hole. I HAD to build an access hatch.
No problem. Lil cabinet door built to mimic thickness/appearance of existing cabinet doors and matching hardware attached.
All reassembled and looks good. Except. *sigh* To my eye the access hatch appears to be about 1/8″ off level. *profound sigh* Check with level. Nope. It’s level. Check soffit. *arggghhh!*
*heh*
I’ll “fix” it for my eye with the “plastering” of the soffit.
But it’s kind of that way throughout the house. Little things that add… character. Like the central–load-bearing–wall that’s been a hair out of plumb since forever, apparently. It was that way when we moved in 16 years ago and has remained stable, just a tad out of plumb. Not a real problem, since the floor joists/cieling rafters, etc., are all 2″x10″, which is easily sufficient for the spans they have to cover, and provide more than adequate stability… as is witnessed by the unmoved out-of-plumb central load-bearing wall. *heh*
All that’s just prologue.
So, the short story made long, Son&Heir and I were chatting over coffee this a.m., and I noted–in my usualy prolix, rambling, long-winded and excessively wordy fashion, that his mother, my dear Wonder Woman, had selected a new faucet for the kitchen sink that would require a trip “through the swamp” to install.
Oh, yeh, that’s two more things. The only inside shut-offs to plumbing fixtures in the house are those I’ve installed since we bought it. Yep. And I’ve just not done those under the kitchen sink yet, for whatever reasons I could conjure at the time (sheer laziness? *heh*). “The swamp”? That’s the “city’s” fault. Their water line is leaking at their water meter. I was told by the guy who’s now mayor, back when he was in charge of city maintenance, that they really needed to replace the city’s water line in that area but just didn’t have the time right then. Well, they need to replace it now.
I reported the leak four months ago. Two months ago, the city had utility lines marked, as required by law in our State when any excavation is to be done. Of course, the city’s not yet gotten around to actually doing the repair yet, so my front yard’s becoming swampy.
But… given the quality of work I’ve seen from city crews recently, that might not be such a bad thing. My Wonder Woman and I were out for a walk last week and ran across some recent work a city crew’s done on a water line. They excavated down to the line at two water meters and… ran a hose ABOVE GROUND between the two meters.
It’s been freezing most nights recently, so I’m sure that arrangement has worked out Really Well.
Dumbasses.
So, in that context, Son&Heir had this response to the soffit access panel, “You could fix the access hatch by doing this [holds his hand in front of my eyes] \o/ I could work for the city!”
*heh*
Smart alec. 😉