Last night, we threw the switch on our new lights—well, both switches. This marks the first working three-way switch in the entire house. We also have eight working outlets to choose from, instead of one. Halleleujah!

Unfortunately, our sleuthing uncovered more asstacular wiring in the basement. My electrician says the strange arrangement of cable runs and junction boxes points to lazy work by contractors of questionable pedigree—they used scrap wire rolling around in the back of the truck instead of using new runs. So our bill will get larger as he replaces the fire-hazards, but I’ll sleep better at night knowing the house won’t burn down when I plug a lamp in the odd socket in the dining room.

I had to build a new partition wall for the bathroom two nights ago so that he could install outlets and switches, something that I haven’t done in a long time. All of my measuring and re-measuring worked out perfectly, though: the walls are square and true with each other, thank god.

So there’s new ceiling joists on the porch as of last week. As we puzzled out how to set the whole thing up, the true picture of how off-level the porch frame actually is came into focus. As illustrated by the picture below, the tops of the windows aren’t square, level, or in line with each other, which will make installation of new windows tricky and time-consuming. And speaking of tricky and time-consuming…

A portion of my Saturday was spent yanking and widening the old doorframe to the porch in preparation for installation of a new exterior grade French door, which will allow light to pass through the space and keep the heat inside the office space. Eventually this will be an outside door when the other side of the porch gets opened up. Hanging doors is one of my least favorite occupations besides wrestling feral badgers and shoveling bison poo, but hanging a pre-hung unit takes about 95% of the pain and suffering out of the process. It’s not the most beautiful of doors (we can’t afford the pretty ones), but it was inexpensive and it’s level and it shuts perfectly. And that’s good enough for me right now.

Today our electrician is back for Round One of electrical fun, where he kills one circuit to yank some ancient, crumbling wire, and a light on the other side of the house goes out. I shit you not: we killed a circuit on the north wall of the front porch, and two lights on the west side of the basement went dead.

When it’s done, we’ll have two separate baseboard circuits in the office for all the equipment we’ll have running there, six recessed lighting fixtures with three-way switches at each door, and six data drops. That way we’ll allow power and connectivity for any possible reconfiguration of the space. The skylight is still in the “possible” category, but it’s not a done deal yet, based on pricing and weather. (Having already cut a hole in the roof my previous house, I can testify that it’s possibly one of the most anxiety-laden remodeling jobs out there).

One thing at a time.

Update: There will be no skylight. Too much hassle, not enough time. Plus, I’d rather spend the money on good windows.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to have Mr. Scout stop by with air-powered tools and a method for leveling the ceiling, which involved more demolition and a lot of joist hangers. In about five hours, we (well, he and his working partner) hung most of the rafters while I demoed the rest of the bathroom wall and hauled debris. Words cannot describe my gratitude.