Scrapbook Room: Day 2

Day two on the craft room can be summarized in one word: electrical. First off, the walls were still soaked. Between the cold, the moisture in the air, and me overdoing it a bit with the BoraCare, the floor was wet in spots, and drops were still hanging from the rafters. I'm not supposed to begin further work till it dries, but there's no way I have time for that.

After drilling my first hole to run electric wires, I realized that I'd need to get the moisture sheathing on the walls before running the wires, so that took precedence. If you've never touched Tyvek, you should. It sounds like sheet metal crinkling, is extremely hard to tear, and yet cuts like wrapping paper. Weird, and insanely expensive stuff. Tyvek breathes, but doesn't allow droplets in, so it's common for sheathing houses. Unfortunately, since the siding isn't off the house, it's not an ideal installation, but it's better than nothing.

Like everything in this house, any work starts with lots of staring at previous installations, and trying to figure out how to make the best of what's here. In this case, I'm dealing with wires running across the room carrying 220V for JT's heater, a 110 line in the walls that feeds the scrap room and JT's room, and the lighting. I decided that the best route would be to move JT's heater onto the same circuit as his room (with a much lower-draw heater), and to separate the scrap room on its own circuit.

So in with the wall boxes, wire runs secured to the framing (see, I can follow code!), a ground connection to the cold water pipes, and the new wiring is complete. That's the easy part. The hard part is getting the new wires attached to the original source. Headlamp time!

Fortunately for me, the rest of the family was out delivering cookies to the local firefighters, so off went the house main, the 220 line got one wire moved to neutral (thus now 110V), and JT's heater got disconnected. To make a long story shorter, I cut a patch for the hole left by JT's heater, put in a new (grounded) plug into JT's room, added a couple of junction boxes to make the connections happen, installed two ceiling boxes, and two two-lamp flood lamp fixtures, and the room wiring is now complete.