It's Electric, boogie-woogie-woogie!

No, we haven't been to any wedding receptions lately. For three months now, we've had house guests on one or both weekend days. We were fortunate to find a skilled and trustworthy master electrician who is updating our 90-year-old wiring. So far, we have two-thirds of the 2nd floor of the house re-wired: every switch, light, and socket is brand new, as is the over 600 feet of wire that connects it all. In the process, we've brought 5 new circuits upstairs, added nearly 20 outlets and added four "can lights" to the media/play room.

This is the "stage" area above the front porch. We have to put studs behind the new wall outlets.

This is the "scuttle" area above the 2nd floor ceiling. The yellow and white wires are new circuits. You can also see two of the new recessed light housings.

This is the other end of the house where the circuits are first brought up, right above the breaker box (below).

This is wiring leading to the new switch in the staircase below. We've got some patching to do on the drywall!

Showing the new and old outlets - the old outlet wasn't even attached to a stud... and it didn't have a ground.

New wiring for the new light fixture in the small office/bedroom upstairs.

New wire... and before the new outlet box was installed.

This is the first step toward officially adding nearly 600 finished square-feet to the house! The next step is insulation and drywall for the front room. We also have to do some minor framing work, especially behind where you see some of the new outlet boxes hanging down in the unfinished front room. We plan to make this a spare bedroom and office space for David. He's already got his eyes on some really cool bamboo flooring.

Showing the new outlet boxes for the media room, from behind (above), and from the front (below).

hmmm... why would there be two new outlet boxes in the center of the wall? Hint: one of them will be for housing two HDMI cables!

Another view of the area above the media room - ahead is the north-facing outside wall of the house, and you can see two of the recessed light housings.

Another new outlet...the old one was ancient.

Of course, there's always surprises. During the process of tracing some of the old wiring, the electricians found a "rat's nest" of wires (see below) hiding under the floor board. This wiring feeds many of the ceiling fixtures of the first floor, and was "updated" in the last 10-15 years... but not really. We found that there is new Romex leading from the breaker box up to this "rat's nest junction", but then the former electricians just left all the old asbestos-covered wiring in place from the junction forward and called it quits. Our current electrician noted that it was likely the former owner paid to have ALL of the wiring replaced and got scammed (since what we found is not even close to building code or safety standards).

The "rat's nest"

Stay tuned as we continue this electrifying adventure!