Early October Victories
The beginning of October, 2011 is seeing plenty of small victories around the homestead. From remodeling plans being drafted, including paint colors, floor materials, etc., to new lighting fixtures and much needed outside repairs.
Today was a great day. It's only the 2nd day this year that I've had to myself, and it was really only about 4 hours, but it was nice to do. Don't get me wrong, I love my wife, but everyone needs some time to themselves. So she and my daughter drove to a near-by town to take one of her sewing machines in for repairs. Those machines enable her to not only make clothing for us, as well as other household items like curtains and table linens, but they're also her main source of income as a seamstress making bags. She's highly sought after and we're now seeing a growing demand for very specific custom work, including custom designed embroidery designs, which I do.
While they were out doing that, I had the perfect opportunity to drive to a different nearby town and purchase some power tools and supplies. It's almost a 40 minute drive to the nearest Lowes, and at least another 15 to the nearest Home Depot, so it's a rare treat for me to get into those "candy stores"! I got to run a muck in Lowes for about an hour drifting up one aisle and down another. The plan was to accomplish one of the three remodel/repair tasks before my wife got home; replacing the light fixture above the kitchen sink.
To cut a long story short, I now own a jigsaw and 3/8" drill, plus a couple of collapsible sawhorses and I'm happy with all of them. We don't make purchases of anything lightly on the homestead, so everything was well researched before it was chosen. The old light fixture was a poorly wired florescent tube one, and the ballast was going out. After pulling the light diffuser sheet away, I could see just how poorly the job had been done. Not only were their bare connections without wire nuts or shrink tubing, but the ballast was designed for two bulbs and had been "patched" to work with a one-bulb fixture...just a stupid thing to do. That fixture was recessed into the soffit, but the new own wasn't like that so I cut a panel to cover most of the space, mounted the new fixture, wired it up, and now it's doing it's job wonderfully! I even managed to cut the power usage without dropping the amount of light produced as well by choosing a very efficient CFL bulb.
Tomorrow, the other two projects will be addressed; namely, add the skirting to the west side of the house that was never installed once the house was put here, and doing some repairs to the bathroom floor. I'll post more about those tomorrow.
The diffuser off, you can see an even older ballast left in place, and a new wired poorly. Notice the blue-blue and blue-yellow twisted, but not capped. Also, all that wire for a single bulb!
The panel and new fixture in place. The "paint" on the panel in this image is photoshopped, I've not painted it yet.
