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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Looking good SIX. That light switch you showed you can find them up here all over the place but mostly in newer buildings.

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Oh, really? They're probably in newer buildings here too then. I know that under-the-cabinet lighting has become the new thing, so I wouldn't be surprised to see this type of stuff built into the new houses.

My solution is going to be quite a bit different. The one benefit those switches have is that they'd be under the cabinets in the hollow space where you wouldn't normally see them. There's nowhere I can put my switch that will be hidden. So I've just bought a plastic junction box that I'll need to screw a hole into the back side for the electric that I'll be sticking out of the wall for it. Even found me a nice white metal cover, unopened, that has the wide rectangle opening for a paddle switch. I'll paint both the box and the cover. I'm not going to paint the paddle switch.

You're only going to have about a 1" clearance for your fingers on that switch when it's done. The paddle will end up very close to the wall. So not exactly hidden, but I figure if I paint it the same lighter grey as the walls that it should blend in nicely and not look so much like a part of the cabinet as it would if I painted it the darker grey that I used on the cabinets.

This is all going to work. I just need to do it now is all.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Oh... were you just talking about the paddle switches themselves, Brenda?

I thought you meant the whole $60 aluminum enclosure that I wasn't going to pay that much for.




Oh yeah... I LOVE those paddle switches. I even have two that still glow faintly orange in the dark with a little LED they've got in there for the master bedroom and the bathroom switches. Installed them way over 10 years ago and nice to see they still light up like that.

I even spring the extra money for the "screwless" plates. They're two parts. The part underneath is where you screw the screws into the outlet, and then the other piece is just flat and snaps in over the switch. Then I also make sure all my plug outlets are the big single rounded rectangles instead of two separate circles, so they all fit in the same plates and they all look the same.


We had paddles in my grandma and grandpa's trailer at one of those Yogi Bear parks when I was a kid, and I'd never seen them anywhere else back then.

Not every switch in my house is a paddle switch. Just the rooms I've finished. Eventually they all will be.



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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Did you ever take care of your photos, Brenda?

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'm so used to a taller seat, when I have to use a standard seat I can't believe how much farther down it is! I start to think "Well, surely I'm about to touch down" and find I've got another 3" to go.

My knees... they hate it!

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You shouldn't worry about having screwed up your book. The only thing you could have done to it is delete it, but that would have to be a very unfortunate random sequents of button presses to get that to happen.

And even if it did, you've got a backup.


Let me know if you need any help.

I think I just finally finished moving my millions and millions of files around today.



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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'm so used to a taller seat, when I have to use a standard seat I can't believe how much farther down it is! I start to think "Well, surely I'm about to touch down" and find I've got another 3" to go.

My knees... they hate it!

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How tall is yours then? You've got the 20" tall boy? Or just the 17" that is considered the minimum standard for the health standard? If it's 20", you must love that, huh?

I've never pooped on my old man's toilet since he did the remodel, but I don't have any memory of it being large like my grandma's. 17" from 15"is only a 2" difference. I can't imagine that's going to be what I'm looking for. 20" and I'll barely have to lean back and I'm already in it.


Unfortunately, this means that the days of me being able to have Robert Reich over for dinner will be no more unless I also invest in a step-stool.



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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'm so used to a taller seat, when I have to use a standard seat I can't believe how much farther down it is! I start to think "Well, surely I'm about to touch down" and find I've got another 3" to go.

My knees... they hate it!

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How tall is yours then? You've got the 20" tall boy? Or just the 17" that is considered the minimum standard for the health standard? If it's 20", you must love that, huh?

I've never pooped on my old man's toilet since he did the remodel, but I don't have any memory of it being large like my grandma's. 17" from 15"is only a 2" difference. I can't imagine that's going to be what I'm looking for. 20" and I'll barely have to lean back and I'm already in it.


Unfortunately, this means that the days of me being able to have Robert Reich over for dinner will be no more unless I also invest in a step-stool.



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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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I had to go measure. At the time, these were primo low flow ADA compliant at 17". They're still ADA compliant, minimally, since that's 17-19".

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I love it when a plan comes together.

...

Tentatively, at least.

Won't really know until I figure out if I really want to go with a 20" tall bowl.

But check this out (open in new tab for full screen if you can't read it here).





Do you think I could go a little higher than just under 6.5 feet for the door knobs? (If I have to guess, it's 74" or just two inches shy of 6.5 feet for the knobs in that picture).

Since I'll still have 8" clearance up top, I figure if I could move everything up even a little more that I could probably fit any regular sized 24"-25" hand towel or just have more than 2" of clearance above the top of the tank using the finger tip towels.

What do you both think, considering your own ability to reach for things? Is over 6.5 feet too high?



ETA: Oh right... The depth of the cabinet matters when asking that question. Both the shelf and the cabinet are just about 6" deep. Nothing protruding too far from the wall so it's not like you'll be burying things on that top shelf that you can't ever reach without standing on the toilet seat.


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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Originally posted by Brenda:
For me, I don't think I would be able to reach the cabinet with a possible a stool or on my very tippy toes. Towel would be easy for me.

Also you really don't want to stand on the closed lid of a toilet. My ex-landlady at the crappy place called someone because she was hearing sounds. Idiot stood on the closed lid and broke it. They left and I had to clean up their mess. So think about that one.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'm so used to a taller seat, when I have to use a standard seat I can't believe how much farther down it is! I start to think "Well, surely I'm about to touch down" and find I've got another 3" to go.

My knees... they hate it!

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How tall is yours then? You've got the 20" tall boy? Or just the 17" that is considered the minimum standard for the health standard? If it's 20", you must love that, huh?

I've never pooped on my old man's toilet since he did the remodel, but I don't have any memory of it being large like my grandma's. 17" from 15"is only a 2" difference. I can't imagine that's going to be what I'm looking for. 20" and I'll barely have to lean back and I'm already in it.


Unfortunately, this means that the days of me being able to have Robert Reich over for dinner will be no more unless I also invest in a step-stool.



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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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I had to go measure. At the time, these were primo low flow ADA compliant at 17". They're still ADA compliant, minimally, since that's 17-19".

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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

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See? That's what I mean. My dad thought his was as tall as my grandma's too, but I know hers was taller than 17". It might not have been 20" like the one I'm looking at, but it was probably on the higher end of that ADA minimum requirement.

That two inches alone though must really seal the deal though, because I'm sure that this 15 incher is by far the shortest one I've ever sat on, and I've had some really crappy apartments in my time.

The one I'm looking at is termed "Extra Tall", if that helps.

And yes... I did just finally find the real specs for it, and the top of the tank is indeed 33.75".


I won't be wasting any space on that wall.




I just hope maybe I'm not overdoing it with 20. I should probably stack some books or something on it and sit down and see what the action would be like 5" higher.

2 or 3" sounds trivial, but if 2" already makes that huge a difference, another 3 might make me wish I went shorter. There's probably a reason why everyone doesn't have a 20 inch bowl on their toilets. It's twice the price of what I could by another small one at Costco for, but at the same store it's really only like $30 more than a 17" model with comparable specs.

If everybody's putting in 17" bowls just to save $30 on a one time purchase, they might really be screwing themselves over.

But maybe I'd better check to see that my legs won't be dangling off of a seat on top of a 20" bowl.


I think I would hate a toilet that felt like a barstool more than the one that's designed for Warwick Davis.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Good question. There is such a thing as "too tall". Most of our kitchen chairs are 18".

Don't forget that when you add a seat to the toilet you're adding another inch.

Check your kitchen chairs. If they're comfy for you then subtract an inch and maybe that's the height you want.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
At least I know what I'm doing now thanks to this video:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
For me, I don't think I would be able to reach the cabinet with a possible a stool or on my very tippy toes. Towel would be easy for me.

Also you really don't want to stand on the closed lid of a toilet. My ex-landlady at the crappy place called someone because she was hearing sounds. Idiot stood on the closed lid and broke it. They left and I had to clean up their mess. So think about that one.

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You don't think you'd be able to reach it even with a stool, or you would need a stool to reach it? I didn't exactly understand your meaning there, Brenda.

I think you probably could reach it. Kitchen Cabinets are hung only 2" lower than the diagram. But I was asking about making it higher than the diagram by at least 2", so maybe not.

Yeah... I was kinda joking about standing on the toilet seat. I had to stand with one foot on my toilet seat quite often, especially as I was painting the window frame. Then cutting in the ceiling over the toilet I needed to fully stand on the toilet seat.

I've got a very cheap toilet seat on there and I really had to be careful how and where I stepped on it and I couldn't move my feet much once I got on there.

If I didn't already know I was replacing the toilet, I may have tried to figure out another way to do it. I might have removed the toilet seat completely and put something on the bowl that was solid that I could stand on without any problems or something.



Would you be able to at least reach the door knobs to open them if they were 74" high?


My thinking is that the storage space is pretty limited in the bathroom, and that the wife is going to end up with the bulk of the medicine cabinet, and the husband is going to be the one reaching and using the toilet cabinet.


Before me, at least two families lived here. The people who lived here before the ones that stopped paying the mortgage was really big too. Somehow they managed without that cabinet at all.

Except for the lower nook where I'll be able to plug in my beard trimmer, I probably won't even use it. Maybe I'll put some toilet paper rolls up there, but that's about it. I guess I could put the hair dryer up there in case I ever grow my hair out again, but really... that could just go in the attic or something because even if I was to start growing out my hair now, I wouldn't even need it for another year or more.

I already have those 3 drawers in the vanity that were overstuffed with crap I don't need or never use, which I said I was going to make decisions about what actually goes back in there when I'm done.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Sorry SIX. I would be able to reach it with a stool. Sorry about misunderstanding you.

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No worries. I figured our wires got crossed there somewhere.

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Yeah, I wouldn't recommend making the cabinet 2 inches higher.

I had to look up how high 74inches is but I think I would be able to. I am around 4foot 10inches and 74inches works out 6'2". So a bit of a stretch but I think I could.

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Thanks for the input.

The knob height here is important because even if I hung the cabinet at only 54" off the ground, which is the standard for kitchens, the knobs would be quite a bit higher on this thing than kitchen cabinets because before you even get to the bottom of the doors, there's an extra 10" added for that nook below the doors.

I'm no mathmatician, but I do believe this would put the knobs up 5" from your standard kitchen cabinet.


****

Nevermind... I'm sitting here thinking that Kitchen cabinet knobs are halfway up the doors. Nope. There twoards the bottom. So that's really just 10" higher than your standard kitchen cabinet knob if hug at 54".

But I just checked the doors on this cabinet, and they must have at least thought of that because the knobs are very low on these doors. They couldn't possibly make them low enough to claim those 10" back, but they're probably only 8" higher than a kitchen knob. I will have to do more mathing and see exactly where those knobs would be at whichever height I go with.

Now that I'm not doing a 20" tall bowl with a 34" tank, I should get about 2 more inches to play with over the toilet for everything too.

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Ah yes. The cleaning out drawers. Always so much fun especially when you look at something and wondered why and where the F the item came from.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Sorry SIX. I would be able to reach it with a stool. Sorry about misunderstanding you.

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No worries. I figured our wires got crossed there somewhere.

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Yeah, I wouldn't recommend making the cabinet 2 inches higher.

I had to look up how high 74inches is but I think I would be able to. I am around 4foot 10inches and 74inches works out 6'2". So a bit of a stretch but I think I could.

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Thanks for the input.

The knob height here is important because even if I hung the cabinet at only 54" off the ground, which is the standard for kitchens, the knobs would be quite a bit higher on this thing than kitchen cabinets because before you even get to the bottom of the doors, there's an extra 10" added for that nook below the doors.

I'm no mathmatician, but I do believe this would put the knobs up 5" from your standard kitchen cabinet.


****

Nevermind... I'm sitting here thinking that Kitchen cabinet knobs are halfway up the doors. Nope. There twoards the bottom. So that's really just 10" higher than your standard kitchen cabinet knob if hug at 54".

But I just checked the doors on this cabinet, and they must have at least thought of that because the knobs are very low on these doors. They couldn't possibly make them low enough to claim those 10" back, but they're probably only 8" higher than a kitchen knob. I will have to do more mathing and see exactly where those knobs would be at whichever height I go with.

Now that I'm not doing a 20" tall bowl with a 34" tank, I should get about 2 more inches to play with over the toilet for everything too.

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Ah yes. The cleaning out drawers. Always so much fun especially when you look at something and wondered why and where the F the item came from.

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Yeah... I've found a few of those. Remnants from 3 beard trimmers ago, probably.

That's the nice thing about doing a remodel. All of that stuff is completely out of the room and you get to make the decisions about what goes back, what doesn't need to be stored in the bathroom, and what can go in the trash.




I even picked up a few of those nice plastic organizer trays with rubber bottoms from the dollar store today. I'm hoping they're not too wide for the drawers. I know they're nowhere near deep enough, but if they aren't too wide I might be able to fit 2 of them in each drawer. They have several different sizes too, so hopefully I'll have some options here.

I really like these things and used them in several of my kitchen drawers. I was thrilled to see that Dollar Tree still carried them. I was not surprised to see that they were charging $1.50/pc instead of only $1.25 for them though. When I bought about 20 of them years ago when I did the kitchen they were all just $1.00 each.





Got everything I need to do the bathroom now, I believe.

Just got to do it.


Just about zero light today with the dark clouds still hanging around. Not sure if I'll do it tonight or not. There was barely enough light with that single lighbulb pigtail I've got up there to shave and I'm sure I didn't do a great job and was thinking about that the whole time I was out shopping.

I need my bathroom back!!!!

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda:

No worries. I think sometimes if you work with a shorter person's height it makes better measurements for someone taller.

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

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Originally posted by Brenda:

No worries. I think sometimes if you work with a shorter person's height it makes better measurements for someone taller.

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I try to be as accomodating as possible when making these considerations. If I were just doing it for myself 25 years ago it would have been done 2 weeks ago and everybody who had to use it after me would be complaining about me like I complain about Uncle Bob and all the crappy work he did before I got here.




That, and I'll never forget the look on my tall friend's face when he walked straight into a rather nasty duct in my grandma's basement and gave himself a pretty nice Harry Potter scar out of the deal.

I felt horrible, even though it wasn't my fault. It was just something I had never considered before since I easily passed underneath them. That, and I'm usually looking where I'm going and paying attention to what I'm doing. We were both drinking, but I just didn't do dumb stuff like that and was just kind of in awe that it had just happened and I had to stop myself from laughing as I saw this dazed look in his eyes and the tears he was fighting back as the blood started dripping down his face from the cut.


It wasn't my lesson to learn, but I learned it.

I'm always thinking about accommodating others, even though I rarely ever have company. When I bought patio furniture years back, I didn't buy for me. I made sure I had chairs that would support my brother and my grandma. I won't say which one, but one of them have broken more than one cheap chair just from sitting on them.

But never at my house.



If I treated myself the way I treat other people, I'd probably live 20 years longer.






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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Yeah... good luck magically getting flex conduit popping out the sides into the wall along with the box when you've got a purposefully very tight hole for the dog ears to attach to and make a solid junction box when you're done.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Yeah... good luck magically getting flex conduit popping out the sides into the wall along with the box when you've got a purposefully very tight hole for the dog ears to attach to and make a solid junction box when you're done.

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I dunno. Maybe they were never designed for retrofit? Only new construction?

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No. They're old construction boxes. Local stores sell them for $16 each. I got them for $8 each on Amazon. They're expensive as shit. I can still get a regular box of the same size for only $2 or $3 at the store.

They're similar to regular boxes, but they've got adjustable ears on the top and bottom, and they've got two very long screws on the sides that have two metal pieces that come together as you screw in the screws on the sides, and they clamp down HARD on the drywall. This thing is not going anywhere now, and there's no stud in the vicinity.

I mean... that part is GREAT.

It's just getting lines to it once you've got it in the wall that I'm a little fuzzy on.

I'm not going to say that the amount of work I did today was anywhere near what I would have had to do if I were knocking down wall to do the electric and build out studs to affix boxes firmly to, but if I didn't have that huge gaping hole for the old medicine cabinet to work with, I don't know how the hell I would have used these boxes.


That being said, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!


And fuck today. I'm done with it.


Holy crap... It started with losing that first box and wasting over an hour and a half looking for it before I resigned myself to using a different box that had screw holes I could attach to the stud I did find at a good place for the toilet cabinet.

So I got my electric to that box tight, and then up to the box for the vanity light. (This is the one that I was REALLY struggling with). But unfortunately, the little length I had leftover was not nearly enough to put the switch down on the side of the medicine cabinet, so I had to dip into my reserves I bought off Amazon...

And then I opened it and realized my mistake. I ordered a 25ft roll of 1/2" flex when I needed a 25" roll of 3/8" flex...

Crap.

I already had a full roll of 1/2" out the garage.

Then I looked around for about 45 minutes in my basement and garage to see if I had even a single 1/2" flex junction box connector, and I did not. Would have needed 2 of them anyhow.

Off to the store...

Not a bad deal though. When I looked for 25 feet the other day, it was $10 more than Amazon which is just nuts. Had I looked at 50 feet though, I would have saved myself a lot of time since it was only TWO FREAKIN DOLLARS MORE than the 25 feet, so now I've got 50 feet of 3/8" for $35 bucks, and two things to return to Amazon.

Unbelievable.


Then the fixture kit that I was gushing over came up next. What a piece of shit. The instructions inside of it were for a regular circlular one that wouldn't have worked for me, so the instructions were no help.

Thank god I have vice grip hands, because what I finally figured out was that I needed to chop the two small bolts holding in the adjustable wings to half the size so they would clear the inside of the light fixture, and I also had to cut off about half an inch from the long bolts so the decorative finishing nuts that go over the top of the fixture after you slide the two holes over the bolts would actually clamp to the fixture and not sit on the end of bolts that were sticking out an additional 1/2".

Also, thank god I have a belt sander in the garage to smooth the bolts out after cutting them off with lineman's pliers or I woudln't have been able to get good thread for the nuts. I had a scare that I cut them too short, but that ended up fine. By this time I was practically working in the dark and my little LED head lamp was dying.

But I got it.


First try with all the electric too, which was awesome.

Everything is grounded.

When I turn the switch on the wall, it powers all the electric in the room except for the outlet right next to the switch, which is always on.

So if the wall switch is on, the outlet for the toilet cab is on too. I also have a whip that goes off to the right side of the medicine cabinet with a ground wire to a switch. That switch also has to be on for the vanity light to be on.



So now, when I get the cabinets installed and I get that second switch into a proper box off the side of the medicine cabinet instead of just hanging out in the air, people will have the option to just use that switch for the vanity light if they want 24/7 power to the outlet that will be in the lower nook of the toilet cabinet.






I think all that is a job for tomorrow though. If I do anything else tonight, I'll probably wash the glass shades and get them installed and see how bright my room is going to be with all 3 lights up there.


It's kind of funny seeing the vanity light up there installed and working without the cabinet up. In my mind, I thought the light would be the last thing being put in place. But now that the electric is all good except for getting that plastic junction box painted and wiring it up before attaching it to the side of the medicine cabinet, there was no reason not to just do the final install on the vanity light so I could see what I'm doing in there again.

Tomorrow I'm going to get that entire circuit on GFCI too. Might take a little finagling in that box to make sure the power comes into the outlet first before the switch. I don't know how they wired it up in there, but that's no biggie if I have to change a few things.

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Hot and muggy at sis' too.
I'm SO glad she got AC! I was actually more worried about her in summer than winter.

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Yeah... Hope she's good. My A/C was really struggling to keep up today and I had to go outside a lot more than I thought I was going to. It's not nice. Even going on 10PM because of the humidity it's still not nice.

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Speaking of AC ... there's a water stain on the ceiling where the evaporator coil/plenum in located. So I had a guy come out today ...in between Dr appts!... and basically there was gunk clogging the drain line that he blew open.
Ah, the joys of home ownership!

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At least it was a simple fix.

How much did that set you back though? I'm assuming you had to pay for at least one hour of union wages plus the regular fee even if it was 5 minutes of work.

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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.