Oh no, it's in the walls

So it's been a while since I posted but I was pretty swamped for a while. First with my parents here and then work in the labs & on the house, I've been a busy boy. While my parents were up we made HUGE progress on the house. However, the moment my mom left the organization she had fell to shit. I need to clean up before I take some pictures to really do the progress justice. Hopefully within a day or two I'll have some good shots. As far as what we accomplished: the kitchen/dining rooms are primered (tinted primer so it's like they were painted), the cabinets were sanded down and the cabinet faces were stained, the master bedroom was primered, the trim stripped and paint, the stairwell ceiling cleaned up, a bunch of wall paper taken down, just tons of crap.

7/17 Thursday -- Erik came over today to help me out some. So we came in this morning and found a bird in the study. Someone had left the window above the AC open (and with no screen). Naturally we did what everyone would, shut the window and trap the bird in the house. It was flying around into walls and stuff, I touched it, it flew into some other rooms--all fun and games. That's when Erik said "oh no, it's in the walls." The bird flew up into one of the walls where I had the trim pulled and the thought of a dead bird rotting in my wall turned things serious real quick. We opened another window and were able to scare him outside. An interesting way to start the morning no doubt.

So anyway I had Erik come to help me pull some of the last wires I need for the electric. Fishing the wires through the walls goes MUCH faster when you don't have to keep going up and down out of the attic to check if your through the wall. I've been working on the electric a couple days and at almost $650 worth of electric supplies, I'm not sure what a contractor would have charged but I'm pegging it at no less than $1,500. Seeing as how I don't exactly have an extra grand or two it's been well worth the DIY route.

I put in 12 new receptacles in the bedrooms, removed the old bedroom outlets, dropped a dedicated 20 amp ground fault outlet into the bathroom (tying it into the lighting circuit is a no go with the code), put in smoke detectors on each floor and in each bedroom, a combo CO/smoke detector in the hall, a dedicated 20 amp microwave circuit, a dedicated dishwasher line, rerouted the kitchen lighting to it's own circuit (tying it into the small appliance circuit was again another violation), hooked up a circuit for the fridge, moved a couple circuits to the sub panel, and rewired in the 220 line for the stove. Not bad for an electric n00b. I must say that compared to the wiring in the main panel, the stuff I've done is a work of art. Before I left tonight I got a few circuits in the sub live. The rest just need outlets hooked up to the dropped wires. Another hour worth of work and I can *hopefully* not have to worry about electric for the rest of my time in the house. It's a good feeling.

Now that's a sexy sub panel