switches and such

We are in that period of farmhouse renovation when things look a lot worse, so that, if all goes well, things will eventually be better.

Classes ended for the week and I hurried – literally ran – to get home so that I could make the drive to the farmette before Andy quit for the day. I missed him by 5 minutes. And maybe that’s a good thing. Ed tells me that Andy is limping badly. I think he’s working too hard. At the same time that I’m thrilled that he’s putting this much effort into the project.

Since Andy was gone for the day, I walked through the house slowly, quietly, taking in the progress of the past two days.

The floors have all received additional support, which means that with the hoisting of the house, the walls have all cracked substantially. Which is a good thing, in the long run.

Upstairs, the wall surrounding the former chimney is so brittle and thin that you can take your pinky and bounce it around some.





Hey, at least the outdoor birds are crazily chirpy... A nice momentary distraction from the work at hand.





I take out my pad and Ed and I walk through all the rooms and take note of electrical outlets. They need to be changed. Eliminate this switch. Replace that one. Definitely change that one. And so on. Such a small farmhouse, and yet there are 19 switches (some double, some single), and 29 outlets, most of them it seems to me, concentrated in one room, unfortunately not the bedroom.

Okay, enough. Who would possibly care... except we care. Deeply. Why else go through all this? A pause at the sheepshed for a cat greeting...




...and onto Menards, where we try to pick the right switches and plates for all outlets and it is a damn complicated task and I’m sure we got it all wrong and half the stuff will have to be returned. So be it.

I had wanted to cook up a storm for dinner tonight, but I have no energy left. Chipotle burritos it is, yet again.