The Big, Not Fun Project!

I’ve been clearing things out around the house in preparation for some work that’s going to be happening on the first and second floors. Dun-dun-dun (scary movie music cue)… REWIRING.

This stupid rewiring project. It is expensive, messy work, and because we paused after getting to a stopping point on the third floor, it feels like it has taken forever. It has held up tons of other things I’d rather be focusing (and spending money) on. So we’re ripping things out now, the electricians will come in and do their thing – around the holidays, which I can only assume will make this a speedy, uninterrupted process – and then we’ll have to patch and repair and fix and paint and blah, blah, blah.

This is our past, but also, our future. (Whoa, deep.)

The walls won’t be completely opened up, so at least there’s that? Here’s the work to be done…

The Second Floor Hallway
Goodbye, unblemished ceiling. See ya, floor. Hello, studs and subfloor.

We opened and reconfigured the hallway while remodeling last year (photo above) turning the house’s second kitchen into a bedroom/nursery, and we replaced a portion of the flooring when we did that. We had planned to continue down the length of the hall anyway, so we’re timing it to coincide with the home’s rewiring so that hopefully it will lesson the damage to the ceiling on the first floor. The hallway ceiling is either getting Swiss-cheesed or taken out completely in hopes that most of the wires can be fished through for the bedrooms. There are probably still going to be plenty of holes in every single room. But maybe less so?

The Closet
Since we’re already ripping up the floor in the hallway, I figured hey you know what’s fun? Emptying the entire contents of the bedroom closet you and your husband share, pulling up the carpet, fixing the subfloor, and laying hardwood. I mean, let’s make the house feel as chaotic as possible by taking over the room where you sleep! (There’s a pretty noticeable soft spot in the closet floor that is getting worse, just inside the doorway. ADD IT TO THE LIST.)

The Dining Room
The huge pendant light is centered on the room, not on the table. Guess which I’d prefer? The beam (hollow, not original) is probably going to have to come down for access to the junction box, so this seems like a good time to reposition the light. Thinking about adding a couple of sconces in there, maybe. Flanking the windows.

The Double Parlor
The electricians are going to be taking down the light fixtures when they do their work. It would be nice to have something different to replace the matching lights in both rooms rather than putting the same ones back up. I want to add a couple of sconces to the bookshelves, too.

Actually… Lots of Rooms
I should probably have some new light fixtures ready to go for other rooms. Ceiling fans in some bedrooms for sure. Rewire/replace the broken kitchen pendants? Entryway? I’ve been looking at tons of options, trying to come up with a cohesive plan, and pinning, pinning, pinning all along the way.

And the Kitchen
Ooh, boy. The electricians don’t even want to touch the kitchen because they’ll open the walls, damaging the wallpaper, and they need to get up behind the tin ceiling. “Leave it until you renovate it,” they told us. Sounds great in theory, but renovating that kitchen is going to be expensive to really do it right, and I won’t know how much we can afford to do in there until the work in the rest of the house is closer to completion. The wiring is old and crazy in the kitchen and it needs to be addressed at some point, but do we just open all the walls at once and go for it, or approach it more sensitively, trying to minimize damage and keep the existing ceiling/cabinetry/everything intact? Fun stuff.

FUN STUFF.