Lighting, Electrics, and Christmas

Strange outlet. Those two little knobs were hot! Note the
ceramic outlet box. 

These depressing fixtures were everywhere in the house.

Three items stood out from the inspection report when we purchased our new home, plumbing, electrical, and the chimney (flue). I finally got around to calling the electrician that gave me an estimate for replacing all of the outlets, and bypassing what was left of the knob and tube. Also of interest was this strange outlet in the floor of the living room and bonus room. The inspector who has done thousands of homes had never seen one before. The retired Union electrician with 50 years experience had seen one before, but didn't know what it was used for. I was fortunate to resist the urge to stick my fingers in there when I first saw it as it turned out to be live. Yikes! They have been removed and I plan to use the now empty living room outlet box as a way to run the speaker wires for the surround sound system. I plan to get around to that in 2017. (kidding Cindy).

New dining room fixture

Porch light.

The house was filled with low end fixtures (understandable considering they had student renters), so I'm going around removing and replacing them as I work on the rooms. I found so far that they have not used ANY standard light boxes instead using electrical boxes for mounting the fixtures and wire junctions. I've found two examples so far where the fixture was mounted to the drywall on the ceiling, not even anchored to the box. SO I've had to be inventive in finding a way to safely anchor the fixture. In the dining room, I removed the lower drywall ceiling, then the upper lathe and plaster to access the floor joists above. On the front porch, where there was a bare bulb in the center of the porch, and an el cheapo fixture by the door. I managed tap into the wooden slats for the hanging light, and adapted mount for the wall light. Speaking of the porch, Cindy's girlfriends gave us a house warming gift card to Lowe's and we used it to purchase two matching outdoor fixtures. Very nice.

Me, my Santa hat, and our Xmas lights. You can see both new
porch lights too.

Cindy and I both love to decorate for Christmas and the fact they we haven't moved into the Park St house hasn't stopped us. In the mild weather after Thanksgiving, I went ahead and put up the outdoor lights. A good 10 or 15 years ago Cindy purchased some old style C9 outdoor lights in an after Christmas sale. I never felt like I had a good place to put them in the old house, but I broke them out and installed them in the new place. Very traditional. Indoors, we decided to put up a fresh Christmas tree in the living room. Having the tree up is really motivating us to move in and we hope to do so soon.

Christmas tree in the living room, (it's not as close to the fireplace as it looks) just need some furniture. Finished dining room on the right. Candle is the first official flame in the fireplace