Fun with Electricity

As some of you know, we are currently having our house entirely rewired. Here are just a few reasons why:

This skinny beige wire was all that was powering the vent hood in the kitchen. This was one of the few times the electrician actually sounded worried. It took them quite a while to figure out how it was all connected.

We spent 18 months with virtually no cover plates. I can't show you pictures of outlets with reversed polarity or that didn't even work.

And the winner is: The outlet on a stick. The electricians say this tops just about anything they've ever seen. Needless to say, it's now gone.

Other points of interest: They found a live wire going under the house from an outlet in the dining room that used to be connected to a sump pump. Even though the breaker was off, somehow this wire was still live.

The ceiling fans in the kitchen and guest room had been moved several inches from their junction boxes. No one is quite sure why it was in the guest room, but in the kitchen, the old man obviously needed clearance for the outlet on a stick. The linoleum circles have come down in some places and the subsequent bare patches will need painting soon:

This is a new hole in the living room ceiling:

The electrician said it was odd that we didn't have a light in the center of the room. Well, there used to be one and there will be again as of tomorrow. Fortunately, Home Depot still has the style we got for the dining room.

So after three and a half days and untold dollars, they should be done by tomorrow afternoon. Then we have lots of cleanup: touch up the paint, remove rubber smears from the floor, fix random holes. All in all, Osborne treats us pretty well.