3.24.2017

Thankfully we didn't get all the ice and freezing rain that they were forecasting, but we did get a thick covering of snow on everything late morning! 

Jim started working on blocking today, doing the top of the upper cabinets.  However, he ran into issues right away.  Originally, the wiring went through the holes in the studs at the top of the wall between the kitchen and the eating area - which unfortunately ended up being right where Jim wanted the blocking.  Mere mortals would have just moved the blocking down, but Jim didn't want to do that - when it's cabinet time, it will be easier and better to have all the blocking in the same location since you won't see it once drywall is there!  But in order to make that happen, Jim had to undo the wiring down to the switch box, pull everything out, drill holes in different locations, and then redo all the wiring!

Plus, you can see that the dropped ceiling is right there, so it made fastening the blocking extremely difficult.  All in all, it took Jim over 3 hours to put this blocking up.  But at least it's done the right way.  And the blocking in this whole corner is now finished - good progress!

Like he didn't have enough of undoing wiring, he then headed down into the wood shop and redid more outlets down there, adding another GFI and pulling out the wiring in more boxes to add the extra screw in the stud for stability.  He even redid the light switches in the shop and the receptacles in the bathroom area.  There was a 240 amp circuit that had never been wired into the breaker box, so he got that all wired up.  At this point, he has over half of the woodworking shop redone.

He had a little time left over and was sick of redoing wiring, so he did some light work.  However, check out how he had to work - a ladder precariously set on top of the pile of wood!  I think I'm glad I wasn't there to see that!

The retrofits for the new lights came today so in anticipating of fixing them, Jim got another of the new lights all stripped out inside and started the work for mounting.

That involves using the step bit to make the knock-out hole bigger...

...so that he can get the box adapter and conduit in place.

He got the mounting blocks attached to the ceiling...

 

High 40/Low 35 - little snow in the morning!