I Suck At Changing Outlets And Switches

Yesterday, Karen and I went out for a little celebration. We ended up celebrating at our local hot spot, Not Your Average Joe's in Norwell. Needless to say, the food (and the bread) was delicious. (Cue Rachael Ray's "Yum-O" sound.)

One of the reasons for our celebration: our garage. Woo hoo garage! Who doesn't celebrate their garage? Anyway, contractors began renovating our garage yesterday. The project will definitely take longer than expected. The main installer (Keith), when he saw the size of the garage was surprised that only two days were scheduled to complete the job. (Keith seems to think the project will be finished in three days.)

Keith seems like a nice guy. He used to be in the Marine Corps (Semper Fi!). His dad used to be a carpenter and he was in business for himself for quite awhile. Unfortunately, he could never make money... not that his work was awful or anything, but apparently health insurance took a big chunk of change out of his pockets. Hence, he became a contractor for Home Depot as their corporation provided benefits. (It's amazing what you can learn in a couple of hours as he unpacks all of his tools and materials.)

Oh, and Keith is proud of his first and only video creation: a documentary he did on a fire that left his friend homeless for some time. Other than that, he is not too savvy with the computer. (Yes, I have too much time on my hands to get all this information.)

Anyway, for a while I have been organizing the garage... trying to clean things and get them... well, out of the garage. The purpose of all the organization was for this garage install project. The project would have started sooner, but Karen and I were away on vacation in Onset when the installers originally wanted to begin.

The entire garage project basically started on a whim. Some time ago, Karen and I were in Home Depot and one of the sales associates approached us. Always one to be polite, I listened to his sales pitch. The next thing you know, Home Depot scheduled a designer to stop by the house and look into the possibility of renovating the garage. Heck, the design was free, so why not?

After speaking with the designer, Karen and I started to think about the real possibility of letting Home Depot renovate the garage. Apparently, Home Depot purchased this company that has what is called a Viking system. (I think the company used to be called Viking... or Blue Viking... or something Nordic like that.) Basically, the Viking system is a bunch of panels that attach to the wall. Hooks, baskets, cabinets, etc. can then be attached to these panels at any location. And from there, organizing the garage will be easier to maintain.

The whole thing sounded great. Plus, I was really in no mood to tackle a huge project like the garage. After all, I still have the bathroom on the first floor that has been patiently waiting for my attention. So my resources are stretched a little thin. Having someone else come in and renovate the garage sounded like a good thing.

And so Karen and I signed on the dotted line and promised them an arm and a leg. (I don't really need my arm or leg anyway.) If yesterday is any indication of how things are going to be with the garage, then I am happy we decided to have professionals do the work. I have had no complaints thus far. Of course, it has only been one day.

The only thing that I had to do, however, was change the outlets and switches. Unfortunately, I suck at changing outlets and switches. Keith had put up the Viking panels on one side of the room. The panels look great. The only problem was that the old outlet in the garage was... well... awful. The outlet was painted over and rusted. Yes, very aesthetically pleasing.

Hence, the dinner at Not Your Average Joe's in Norwell. Not Your Average Joe's is located near the Home Depot. So after dinner, Karen and I went to pick up some outlets and switches to match the garage. (The outlets and switches... and the wall plates for them... are black, like the trim in our garage.)

Needless to say, I spent much of the night installing the outlets and switches. The outlets were easy to switch because they were on a separate circuit than the garage lights. Changing the light switch in the dark, however, was a little more complicated. I actually had to bring in a work light to install the switches.

And interestingly enough, the wiring for some of the switches: bad. As my friend (Cass) would say... "it's not how I would do it, but..." I would actually ground the grounding wire. That's just me. And I would actually make the three way switch work like a three way switch.

The three way switch in the garage does not properly work. Whichever end you are on, that side controls the light. I can't switch on the light from one side, then go to the other side. Sure, it's annoying. The three way switch in our front area of the house is similarly annoying. That switch does not function properly either and that was installed by an electrician. Damn three way switches.

Anyway, I did not have time to actually look into the matter of the three way switch in the garage. By the time I had discovered its peculiar behavior, it was pretty late into the night. In fact, I may have discovered the weird wiring during the airing of my friend's (Hot Amy) guest appearance on Quncy Access Television. Yeah, Hot Amy is famous now. I haven't seen the episode. I can't wait to watch it though.

Needless to say, I decided to leave the wiring as is. After all, it is just the garage. I suppose I could look into fixing the problem at a later date. But for now, the switch will continue doing its thing: being weird.

Hopefully the rest of the project will still go smoothly.