Fears

It has been said that if you name your fears they are easier to deal with.
I fear electrical work, so I named it Beelzebub.
I do love the benefits of having electricity in my home, and pretty much everywhere I go, but I’d really much rather leave having to work with it to the experts. The problem with that is every time I’ve needed someone to work on an electrical problem I can’t afford to pay the experts to do it. And every time (and I do mean EVERY time) that I have done any remodeling work in my home, when I encounter any portion of the electrical system that needs to be worked on, it just doesn’t look right.
Our house was built in 1952. It’s not big, but it has always served our purposes. On the other hand it had some properties that, when viewed with kindness, are described as contributing to the “character” of the house. When viewed by my eyes the description that came to mind was “demo project”.
My wife insists that I am having fun when I swing the hammer or crowbar to break through the drywall. Probably because of the maniacal grin that appears on my face while I’m doing it. I have to admit there is some satisfaction in the release of destructive force; however, it is tempered by the thought of what I will find on the other side of that drywall. It can be like opening a time capsule sometimes. This is a space that hasn’t seen the light of day in 56 years after all. The phrase “they don’t make them like they used to” always comes to mind when I start one if these projects.
Several years ago we remodeled our kitchen. I had some friends helping me on that one, and I learned a lot from them in doing that.
Things like “measure twice cut once”. I’ve modified that to “measure 10 times, cut once an inch more than measured, and then trim down by 1 millimeter at a time until you get the right length, and then when it’s still a millimeter too long, force it in to the desired space.”
Or, “Plan out your project ahead of time”. I revised this one to “plan it out in general terms and then run to the big box hardware store 20 times in the course of the project for other materials and always, always make sure you buy a new tool before you leave”.
A little while after we finished the kitchen I started on one of our bathrooms. It wasn’t in bad shape or anything, but our house is short on cabinet space and this bathroom had no cabinets whatsoever. So we ordered cabinets and I started pulling everything out of the bathroom.
I also needed to replace the shower walls as well so I was ripping out tiles that were made of aluminum. I had never seen anything like that before.
In order to put the new cabinets in I had to relocate the light switch. I was also installing a fan and another set of outlets.
I read all the books on wiring your own house. They had great pictures.
I like pictures. Just show me what it’s supposed to look like in the end and I’m good.
So I tore out the drywall to get to the wiring.
It didn’t look anything like the pictures.
I got a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach, and things inside of me started to seize up, but I had unfortunately already torn out the toilet.
I looked at the pictures again.
I held the book up to the wall and tried to identify what I saw.
No luck.
So I turned off the light and shut the door to the bathroom and went to bed.
Surprisingly, it was all still there the next morning.
I looked at the book and found that the pictures were still the same too.
I had no choices left to me so I went out to the electrical box in the back yard and I turned off the electricity to the bathroom. Then I went in and cut a couple of wires.
No sparks, no fires.
That’s one of the things about electricity that I don’t like: if there’s not a little light attached to whatever you’re working on you never know if it’s there or not. It’s an invisible menace waiting to jump out and grab you just as you get comfortable in its presence.
As I got more comfortable with it I cut a few more wires until there was basically nothing left of the original wiring in the bathroom. Then I got out my picture book and put in new wiring to make it look like the pictures. Then came the moment of truth: it was time to turn the electricity back on.
So I went out to the box in the back and flipped the switch.
I was gratified that there were no explosions, and that the electricity did indeed stay on for the rest of the west coast. I was worried about that.
I went back inside to see what was happening.
Everything looked ok.
I approached the light switch that I installed and very cautiously flipped it on.
Both the light and the fan came on. I only wanted the light to come on.
I turned that switch off and flipped the fan switch on.
The fan and the light in the hallway came on.
Beelzebub.
I went into the hallway and flipped the hallway light switch (which, by the way, I hadn’t even touched) and the hallway light and the bathroom fan went off.
So I went back outside and turned off the electricity, and then I cut some more wires and started over again. Eventually I got it right. Or at least as right as I had a right to expect it to be right.
It has been a few years since that happened and the time came when the other bathroom had to be torn apart. I approached it with more confidence than the last time for the simple fact that I now had more experience, and the pictures in the book still hadn’t changed.
I got out the hammer and the crowbar and started in again.
I knew what I thought should be there, but when I stepped back and let the dust settle I found that I was looking at the same nightmare as before.
Beelzebub.
It didn’t match the pictures!
I really hate it when that happens.
There was extra stuff. Why do you need extra stuff in a bathroom?
So I did what I always do.
I shut the door and went to bed. I knew without a doubt that it would still be there when I woke up.
The next day I called my good friend Dave Nelson.
Dave is an electrical genius.
He is the high priest of electrical knowledge.
He is the one with all the electrical answers.
Dave is also one of those guys who are always on a quest for knowledge. When he wants to know about something he just jumps right in and finds out what is needed and does it. He is always working on something at his house. I can pretty much guarantee that if you walk into his house at any given time there is a project being worked on. I expect that the worst form of torture you could inflict on Dave would be to tell him that he had to sit down and relax and never visit another hardware store again.
So I called Dave and sent him a picture of what I was looking at. He looked at the picture and we talked about it, and he concluded that in this case everything appeared to be the way it was supposed to be.
He concluded his remarks with, “I don’t really see a problem. I think you’ll do fine with it.”
That’s another thing about Dave; he’s an eternal optimist.
In my head I was saying, “YOU don’t see a problem? I still see a problem! This is BEELZEBUB we’re talking about here!”
With my mouth I was saying, “Yeah, I think I understand it now. I should be ok.”
So I turned the electricity off and cut some wires. No explosions.
I finally got it finished and went on to finish the drywall, install the sink and paint everything.
Now that it’s done I have a new issue.
When we were deciding on the color my wife wanted yellow.
I did not want yellow.
We compromised on a kind of golden brownish color that seemed to fit the room. So we got the paint and I finished the job.
Then the paint dried.
It’s yellow.
In fact it’s actually YELLOW!
It’s so YELLOW! that you don’t even have to turn on the light to see at night because it pretty much glows in the dark! And if you turn on the light you're gonna go blind.
YELLOW! does not belong in a bathroom. It’s too strongly associated with something else that you will find in a bathroom that is also yellow which I shall not name here to save those of sensitive dispositions. It is also often associated with the number 1.
After having to sit in the YELLOW! room for a while I have now discovered that I truly hate YELLOW!
On the other hand, the light switch only turns on the light in the bathroom so maybe I’ll just leave it that for now.
©Dan Bode 2008