One of the dreams I’ve had for the Lockardugan estates since the day we moved in has been to level and replace upgrade the garage to make it easier to use. Since moving in, I’ve put doors back on the front and carved a hole out of the floor for the Scout to sit inside, but it’s still very ghetto in there. When we first looked at the house, there were three insulated knob and tube wires running from the back porch to ceramic insulators on the side of the garage, which fed it power from an already overtaxed interior circuit. The inspector told us the jimmy-rigged electrical wiring would have to be disconnected before the house could be sold, so out went the lights. I’ve had an extension cord running from the greenhouse through a hole in the back of the garage since 2007, which has slowly been covered over by grass and has missed whirring lawnmower blades by the grace of God.

My neighbor, an electrician, recently suggested running a subpanel from the circuit in the greenhouse, which is fat enough to support a 220 industrial heater, and I jumped on the idea. (The greenhouse was installed with proper wiring, but nobody thought to make a left turn and upgrade the garage while they were doing so). This weekend I finally pinned him down, and we ran conduit in a trench I’d dug weeks ago from inside the greenhouse to the back of the garage wall. Then we covered that over, fed 8-3 wire inside, and connected the panels up. Five minutes later, we had an outlet installed, and I pulled the extension cord up off the lawn forever. Progress!

Now I’m going to pick up a few more breakers and set up a real, functioning light switch and about eight outlets around the perimeter. Then I can start looking for a full-size air compressor and a decent stick welder. It’s not my dream garage, but it’s better than it was!

Sunday we disassembled our IKEA bookshelf in Phase One of Project: Living Room Overhaul. I bought four cans of white plastic spraypaint and we set up an assembly line on the back lawn to cover every square inch of faux birch with white. Later in the day Mr. Scout stopped by to discuss plans to replace our janky front steps. The plan is to extend the landing at the top of the stairs outward so there’s more room to work at the front door, widen them so that they cover 6″ of un-stuccoed foundation that was formerly hidden by huge shrubs, and add architecturally pleasing railings to soften the front of the house. While he’s in there we’re going to replace the front door with a brighter 8/1 security door, which will bring light into the front porch and make the place a little less severe-looking. It’s going to be a month or so before he can get started, but we’re VERY excited to get moving.