We interrupt this renovation...

to bring you a special report:  The sewer drain is clogged, which means last night's dishwasher draining ended up in the bathtub, and the water from the washer drain ended up on the floor. Not to mention the awesome mini-Niagara Falls pouring out of the drain itself in the backyard.  We tried some fixes yesterday -- boiling water, cleaning out the disposal, etc. None of them worked.
So, today James made the trip to Home Depot to rent the super snake. When he opened up the sewer drain cap in the backyard, he discovered the likely clog-creator:  a plastic horseshoe stake put down the hole by "somebody."  Any guesses?  It had apparently blocked the flow, and a huge clog was built up behind it.  Awesome.
So after about 15 minutes of snaking, he heard the clog move on down the drain to Neverland, and we were once again clog-free! Praise the Lord for a relatively easy and inexpensive fix!  Now, back to work!

You know that saying?

"Sometimes it has to get worse before it can get better."

My mother-in-law, with a smirk on her face, asked me this evening,"Why did we paint?" :-)

Thanks to the insane wiring setup that currently exists in the house, James has had to cut several holes to see where wires are going.  There were random things in 4 different rooms attached to the same circuit. Awesome.

But he does patch them up as much as he can! 

On to the living room wiring...

This meant starting on the other side of the living room wall, where James destroyed the fake brick backing to our built-in desk.  I wish I could say I was sad...

Once he got the wires run...

He installed an extra new switch. Now the fans actually have a wall switch! And we were very particular to make sure that the switches were in the right order -- the one on the left goes to the fireplace lights. The right one goes to the fans.  Getting those mixed up would have driven us NUTS. 

 Speaking of fans, they're back up and working fantastically!

Electrifying

Well, it's finally time to do some electrical work around here. Before James puts the floor on upstairs, he wants to get as much in place for future work as possible.  And now that the HVAC is done, it's time for wires.  The more he digs into the wiring, the scarier the existing wiring is becoming -- this place is crazy!  So, he's really glad to be running all new wires -- especially so we know exactly what is going where.

 Now, obviously, this doesn't look like quite the pretty sheet rock hole he started with, but things happen sometimes... 

Here he is attaching the new wire to the bathroom. He likes to say that he's making our walls look a bit Frankensteinian.  Patches everywhere!  And more to come!

Yes, scary wires... No major shocks yet...