In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Friday, September 11, 2026 15:29
VIEWED: 338648
PAGE 738 of 834
NICE!
I was thinking about what I would need for that light fixture and it occurred to me that I could probably buy a part or a kit to do the job right. I'm remembering rings and crosses that I had saved for 30 years in my electrical stuff, so I might actually have something out in the garage that will work, but I do think I may have thrown that out during a dehoard... I'm not sure.
If I need to buy one, it looks like that's another $5 on the job.
*(And just to be safe with all of this, if I can't find a better solution or original hardware, I'm going to paint the tips of the screws with the spray primer and rubbed bronze paint as well as a few small washers. I just don't like the idea of the screws holding in that unit without the support of washers since it's hollow and rather flimsy metal. I'm sure I'm the only person who will ever notice that.)
I'll have to put my glass shades on my digital scale and see how much they actually weigh. The fixture itself couldn't be more than a pound or two. They say if the fixture is over 15 lbs that the junction box needs to be attached to a stud.
I'd probably have quite a bit more leeway because of the crazy thick "drywall" I've got, but I don't ever put in any electric that's not up to Code, so hopefully those shades aren't more than 3.5 pounds or so each.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Alright, alright... 2 of 3 coats for everything done now.
My lighting down there isn't the best when the sun is down. There's 4 recessed lights. IN the center they probably had a fan like they did in the far room down there, as dangerous as that had to be unless you were a family of hobbits. I really should get around to getting a proper light for the center down there. It would really be helping me out right now.
You'll see the pictures later sometime, but I'm not kidding about that woodgrain with the grey paint.
I just realized something as I was down there painting today... My step dad was wrong when he always said that painting wood is a sin. I understand that fixing that "sin" is a large part of what he did in his business, but it just occurs to me now that it was so easy to agree with him back then about it because every painted piece of wood that came into that shop looked like absolute shit.
I didn't "IKEA" this stuff up by putting paint on it. It's just a different way of displaying the beauty of wood, even if it is objectively less natural than his way.
And that's just the thing. He never saw a well done painted piece in his shop that was done by an artist. Those are all still well taken care of and in nice houses with people who appreciate them. All he was getting was the ones that had all the paint flaking off, or paint dribbles abound over something that my Step-Dad was able to make look like it had the original stain from back in the 1700's once he and my mom were done doing their artistry with it.
The one thing you don't get with natural wood is the fierce contrast of shadow play. The shadows are still there of course, but the wood grain interferes with it. Detracts from it... There's nothing but whites and greys in most of my rooms now, and the way rooms look at different times of the day, especially when standing in one room and looking through to other rooms is a really cool effect.
I'm going to have to snap some pictures from down in the living room up into the bathroom when it's done to show you what I mean. But even that is going to pale in comparison to what it will look like when I finally construct the banisters for the stairs to tie into that overlook.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Shadow play...
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Mah jong for me in the morning.
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Good luck, Brenda. May you win before I even wake up for the day. 
I just noticed that even my shadows have bevels...
I love working with greyscale.
Back in my young, dumb days when I always carried a sketch book around me and thought I was going to go to the Art Institute of Chicago, I always had my set of black charcoal pencils with me. It was pretty rare I ever did any work in color unless that was part of the assignment.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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I'm thinking about being a bit naughty with the electric...
I had a thought that I might be able to go up with the electric from the basement. But the walls on both sides are mostly hung at the top since I only cut out up to where the water damage was on both sides. If I could even get under there and up with it, I'd have to have a powerful drill with about a 4.5 foot long wood drill bit, and that's not exactly a job I want to be doing in the dark with drain pipes all over the place.
But...
The ceiling in the basement bathroom doesn't exist aside from a soffit with a few can lights in them that somebody needed to make to go around the drain pipe for the toilet above...
So I was thinking...
Rather than drill through a 2x4 plate or two without having any idea what comes after that, what if I drilled up through the floor toward the back of the vanity, and fed a length of something down through the old medicine cabinet hole into a nice big square hole I cut in the wall back there where nobody will ever see it with the drawer in the way?
I'd just have maybe a few inches of the electric coming up through the floor under and behind the drawer in the back, and then going directly back into the wall and up to the junction box I'm going to install in the medicine cabinet hole. Then that always-on connection can be brought over to the left for the toilet cabinet and it won't be controlled by the light switch.
I'm going to have to look into code for sure, because this electric is close to water lines and drain pipes. I may have to buy a pricey length of some outdoor-rated romex or something to do this up to code.
It will still be a bitch, but a much more manageable bitch to do it this way. I think I can make this work.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Here's what I'm thinking...
I REALLY love my nightlight in the bathroom and it's bonkers I had 2 of those for years just unopened in the attic without getting any use.
I really kinda want to see what it would be like in there if I had a 2nd night light inside the nook of the over-the-toilet box and have 2 feint light sources in the bathroom at night.
This is the only way I'm going to be able to do it since I have no interest in bashing down walls and drilling through studs.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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New plan, I think...
That will be close, but I've got to do it to code.
The electric coming from the floor needs to be any form of rigid conduit, at least 6" high in the cabinet before it goes anywhere.
But the good news is that you only need 1" clearance between electric and water pipes. I should be able to poke a hole up through the floor and another hole in the floor of the cabinet above the drawer, behind the two drawers on the right side. Then I can have hard pipe coming up from the basement, at least 6 inches above the floor to a junction box. Then I should just be able to fish whatever flex electric I want down through the medicine cabinet hole and pull it right out through that hole in the wall with the plumbing that I cleaned up and framed out before painting. I'm sure there's some way that I can affix that to the wall at the top and bottom that will ensure it's at least 1" away from water pipes and if those pipes ever leaked it wouldn't leak on the electric.
Not the most elegant of solutions, but I should be able to make it safe, up to code and also hide anything that I'm doing from everyday normal use of everything.
Oh... I should also see if they make some sort of large rubber washers that would fit snugly on conduit pipe. I'm also required to seal off the opening in the floor, and I may as well do it in the cabinet too. If I had thick rubber washers around the pipe, I could just put some silicone on it and press it down on the floor and water would never get in there.
I'm getting all excited about this idea, but I shouldn't just yet. It all sounds great until I go down into the basement and realize just how damn hard this is actually going to be. I don't know how I'm going to do all this work above that soffit yet or if there's really any room to be doing drilling and the like. Plus, I really don't know the map of electric down there. Sure... it would be easy to just grab electric from one of the can lights, but that's on a switch too. The closet is on the other side of that wall, and there is electric in there, but I might have to bust down some walls there to get to it too.
I'm more open to doing that though if it's absolutely necessary. It will be a long time before I'm remodling that room, and all the drywall in the basement is regular drywall and not the concrete/plaster stuff they built the rest of the house with.
In the meantime, this shouldn't slow down putting up the toilet cabinet and the towel bar when they're all ready to go. I'm still going to be cutting out the same hole in the wall for a new electric outlet regardless of where the source is coming from. As long as I have that box installed and electric to it attached to the junction box, I can make up my mind later on how much effort I really want to put into the source.
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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.
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Well, lousy morning at mah jong. Had some horrible hands and one where I could only give myself 10points. You do that when you have nothing to count in your hand or on the board. Talk about yuck!
Otherwise all done for now. Working up the courage to try and download my pictures and aaaggghh!
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Oh gosh, BRENDA, that really WAS a bad hand! Maybe luck will even it out with a really good day soon.
Where are your photos now, and where are you transferring them to? Just curious!
SIX, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying about paint and grain. But your idea about light and shadow showing up better on painted surfaces... I never thought of that before, but it really would make details like beading etc really stand out, wouldn't it?
Hubby is a woodworker, and for him seeing and matching grain is very important. He slways goes with clear finishes like tung oil. So I guess in that way he's more like your stepdad. Painting wood is a sin!
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
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