Another Smallish Update

I'm kind of feeling guilty for not posting more frequently, but most of the other "house blogs" that I follow aren't much more active, so I can't feel too bad. I'm hoping, however, that the followers on my blog will help keep me motivated. The "to-do" list I've got is currently pretty damn long...

Anyhow, today I was in a rather blah mood, and I didn't really feel like doing anything. It's hot, I'm exhausted from a long work week, and I haven't even showered yet (it's just after 4pm and I feel gross).

BUT, I decided to finally go ahead and rewire that large glass shade fixture, since I had nothing specific that needed to be done to it, other than wiring it, and assembling it. Plus I wanted it out of the way so that it doesn't get damaged.

Here's the completed fixture. I used my standard gold rayon wire, but I spray paint-misted the wires a dull brownish (still letting some of the gold through). I did this on the living room fixture as well, because the parts of the fixture didn't look good with the bright gold wire.







This kind of hanging shade fixture is referred to as a "gravity hook" fixture. The hooks on this one have set-screws to hold them and prevent unhooking, but some other types simply loop on, and are held by the shade/chains (by gravity). Some of these come with longer chains, some have only 1 bulb, but this one has three. I actually went through 2 shades already. The first one was bought months ago at a VERY good price on eBay (~70$ with shipping, compared to some that I've seen at around 350$), but the seller packed it really poorly and it arrived smashed to bits (I was refunded). The current shade is identical to the one that arrived in pieces, but I had to wait several weeks until I found another one at a good price. I think I paid almost the same price for the second one.

I also decided to just temporarily hang the "shell" for one of the MB fixtures (because I'm impatient and I wanted to see how it will look) and I LOVE the colour(s) of the shade with the blue.



Lastly, I decided to remove the GCFI plug over the sink in the spare bedroom (formerly kitchen/laundry room upstairs). Whoever installed this plug did a really poor job. First, as I was removing the plastic cover, the entire box came loose. The box was not even screwed in the wall (even though it would have been extremely easy to do this with the kind of box they were using).

And yes that loose wire above (which used to be in the upper cabinets) is the one going to the plug.





Then when I removed the plug from the box, the neutral wire came loose (or wasn't even attached properly) and I noted the excessively long wires. Long is fine, but this was just ridiculous.



I then pushed the wire up into the attic, and found that the other end was what went to a "mystery junction box" which was just sitting on a board. They must have run short on wire, and just added a piece, but they could have just run the wire directly to the outlet instead of going up to the attic, and back down again.

In the process of doing this, I made an unhappy discovery. The vent pipe over the sink is now broken at the top. The pipe is an old 1 1/2" galvanized one that runs from the basement up to the roof, passing through both the kitchen and upstairs laundry room. But in the attic, for whatever reason, it goes from 1 1/2" to about a 3" or 4". It's at this transition point that the pipe is now broken. I guess with the moisture/water/age, it must have rusted through.

You can see the "mystery junction box" as well as the vent pipe in this old photo.



:S