Oops! We needed that?

In every project, there are somethings that seem to happen just to keep you on your toes. In our case, just as in every other, this has happened. The day started out so well, too. Seeing as it was MLK, Jr Day, we had an extra pair of hands to help as one of our friends had the day off of work. He likes helping us out, as he lives in a condo, so comes over to practice the manly arts of home de- and re- construction on our house rather than his. It is much more adventurous.

The main goal of the day was to get everything set in the morning to be able to blow insulation down into the wall cavities on the first floor. This requires several bales of insulation and a large mixer/blower machine with many, many, many feet of hose. The machine takes the bales of insulation and fluffs them up and then spits them out the hose into wherever you want it to go.

In our case, due to the weight of the fluffer machine, we left it outside and fed the hose up to thru a second floor window. In most cases, one might be concerned about all the cold air coming in the window. In our case, this concern is not necessary, seeing as we have had no insulation up until now.

As part of the prep work, we needed to make sure we could shoot the insulation down the wall cavities as easily as possible. It turned out that those who built the house just left all the floorboards end where they ended, rather than cut them off nice and neat. This makes it hard to get the insulation down the wall. We are the proud possessors of a SawzAll, and it does indeed, as we found out later, Sawz All. We used this magical tool to cut off our floorboards nice and neat and even.


Down the insulation went, causing a very large dustcloud, very dusty people, and a Very Dusty Room.The insulation went in quite easily and quickly. This should have been a clue.


It wasn't until later that the problem came up. As it began to get dark outside, the need arose for me to turn on some lights. The easiest lights to turn on are often those overhead. Flip, went the switch in the kitchen. Nothing. Hmmm, maybe the guys flipped a breaker while doing something upstairs. Down the stairs I went, and over to the breaker box. All breakers are "On". Back up the stairs. Let's try some more lights.

Den = nope. Kitchen = nope. Living room = nope. Front porch = nope. Dining room = nope. Hmmm, this does not bode well. Let's try again. This time I managed to find a combination of switch positions that did indeed make the dining room lights turn on, the living room lights glow with orange mood lighting, and the front porch lights glow very faintly and flicker. This REALLY does not bode well. Back down the stairs again. Nope, breakers are still on.
All the outlets work, as do the lights and outlets in the upstairs where the project is taking place. Now onto some detective work. Meanwhile, the sky is getting darker outside, limiting the amount of light coming in the windows. After peering about in the basement and following wires strung hither and yon, and peering again down the wall cavities, this time after scooping out the fluff, we discover that apparently a wire has been cut. The wire that goes to ALL of the overhead lights on the entire first floor. What it is doing in the second floor, I'm still not completely clear about.

Time to call the electrician. They can come out tomorrow and fix this. And, as long as they are at it, I'm going to have them move the smoke detector in the bedroom, as it is currently located directly over the bed, and that little red light blinks all night long! Maybe they can put it by the door.