I've discussed the electrical issues we've been facing, opened up by the removal of the chimney. We have live wires trailing from attic to basement in that open space, and they had to be tucked behind the linen closet on the second floor. More broadly, the causal chain is that we need to fix the electric wiring in the attic because:- It would not be safe to lay floorboards over the current wiring, because some of them are bare exposed wire (50-80 years old)...
- We want floorboards in the attic, so we can store stuff currently in the basement...
- We want to store stuff in the attic, so we can use the basement as the temporary kitchen when we gut the kitchen...
- We want to gut the kitchen, so we can remodel the kitchen.
The third reason we need to fix the attic wiring is to free up some circuits to add light and power to the new kitchen. The garbage disposal and (I believe) the dishwasher will each need dedicated circuits. In addition, we will be going from a current total of two ceiling lights and three outlets to:
- two hanging lights,
- a stove vent,
- a recharging station for all our mobile phones, iPods and batteries (a kitchen for the 21st century!),
- a handful of task lights,
- another handful of electric outlets for appliances, and, if I get my way...
- a series of small white LEDs accentuating the tops of all the cabinets.
For all these reasons, we are working on the attic. It's icky work. You can't stand up; you have to wear a mask. Even with the mask (and safety glasses) you get insulation fluff embedded in your hair and clothes and eyes. There is, ironically, no power to the attic itself, it merely supplies power to the floor beneath it, so we working in the dark except for a headlamp like a coal miner.The wiring itself has -- some of it -- been patched together poorly (with wires spliced together and then spliced again, and again, for chains of 6 or 7 splits; with no to-code junction boxes, only electrical tape wrapped around the splice like a temporary bandage). Some of it is in good shape -- some original knob and tube work from 1915 is still safe and better left alone than "fixed". We don't yet have those floorboards installed, so HomoDomi has to balance on the edges of 2x4s, whilst avoiding those occasionally live wires and the holes in the middle -- one left by the chimney (under the hammer in the center of this photo) and the entryway to the attic (out of which I am poking my head).
HomoDomi has done it all -- I have been quite willing to be the runner, from top of the ladder on the second floor down to the far end of the basement to turn on and off circuits, or to pick out some screws, or to grab a newly recharged battery. And back again (58 steps plus 10 ladder rungs plus two crossings of the house laterally. Who needs a Stairmaster?). I have an odd fear of heights: I have enjoyed the landscape view out, and down, from the Seattle Needle, the Sears Tower in Chicago, the top of The Arch in St. Louis, or the tip of Köln Cathedral -- but I do not care for internal holes, surrounded on all sides by building but empty for many feet directly underneath you. Perhaps it's not heights I'm afraid of, but depths. Long empty depths of space, below.
4 comments:
How high is the ceiling in there? It looks to me like homodomi would bump his head if he stood up. Still, I know you have mentioned putting bedroom space up there, and even if you have to get up there by ladder, it could be quite a decent space for a, say, adolescent boy.
I remember when the COG and I insulated the attic in Worcester that it was a horrible job. In those days insulating was fiberglass in our hair, in clothes we had to throw out afterwards. It was dusty and hot and filthy and God knows what it did to our lungs, even through the masks we wore.
There's some lovely new stuff on the market that seems much friendlier than fiberglass.
BTW, I think an adolescent boy could be happy in an attic space with just a dormer or so for headroom.
Yes, HomoDomi would bump his head -- at the peak, it is about 5 feet. It has been suggested by some, and rejected by others, that the roof could be raised by 3-4 feet, creating a top floor that could house one or two small but charming, sloping bedrooms. There's even space to add a small staircase.
I don't think it would be that expensive, relative to moving.
On the other hand, I don't know what a third floor would do to the silhouette (is that what it is called?) of the house. Would it lose its integrity?
You know, I'm pretty sure that you could find one of those paper (or at least cheap and throw-awayable) hoodedd coveralls at your local home improvement store such as (what we have around here) Home Depot or Menards. It would at least protect your clothes a bit more.
On another subject, is it possible that you are not afraid of heights but are rather afraid of enclosed spaces? That might be why you are not afraid in, say the Space Needle, but are afraid of the attic. Personally, I'm not afriad of flying, but am terrified of much lower heights, such as the view from our loft.
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