Electrifying

During the process of spare bedroom demolition (detailed in a previous post), there was one unintended, accidental destruction: we broke the lighting fixture (the overhead light w/ the switch). Today, I was thrilled to have our lovely next-door-neighbor, Lisa, and her daughter Cookie, come over and fix it for us. Lisa is an electrician and just all around lovely person. Cookie (who is in third grade) serves as assistant on Lisa's smaller (at home) jobs. It turns out that we had broken it in two places -- the switch itself and the overhead light were both messed up. (I'm sketchy on the details, so I'm afraid "messed up" is as well as I can explain things.) But they are no longer messed up, and instead, we have light! And safety!

She also mentioned that the electricity in the house was updated by the owners BEFORE the previous owners, so about a dozen years or so ago. She said she thought the wiring actually looked a lot better than most of what she'd seen in houses this age, so that was nice to hear.

We're so so thankful to have such kind & capable neighbors!

A funny thing happened while Lisa was working on the project. She needed to run out to the hardware store in the middle of it (I was pleased that we're not the only ones this happens to), so she went to our local Ace Hardware. While there, buying stuff for the spare bedroom, she ran into Zach, the former resident of that very bedroom. No kidding. We had never met him, but Lisa knew the former owners, including Zach (one of the kids) very well.

Zach asked if we had done anything to the house, and she told him we'd done a lot with the outside. The he asked if we'd done anything to his bedroom, because it was a mess, and because he knew there was a big leak in the room -- one that required a bucket -- that they had spray painted over when they sold the house. He said he thought they should have told us about the leak. He also mentioned that he had punched some holes in the wall, and that he could see outside through them. These things, of course, we have already discovered on our own. But he did mention one thing that we didn't know -- he said that there's asbestos in the attic. This seems a little strange (I thought asbestos was mostly in basement, around pipes and furnaces), but interesting. I wish they had told us about the leak, but, we figured it out soon enough.

All around, it was a very informative day!