Striving to create a better life for everyone by sustainably solving real estate problems

(512) 807-8777

Tag Archives: electrical work

Lighting the Office and Hoping for the Best

We can see! Hooray!

Over at the Hermit Haus, we’d noticed the lighting had become really dim. It felt more dungeon-like than usual, even.

So, Kim and David came over with a ladder to check things out. They put new bulbs in the fixtures, and sure enough it got bright. We are hoping the LED bulbs will be kinder to the electrical system than the regular old ones that were in there before. And it was much more cheerful in the basement after that! So glad they were able to do that favor for us.

What’s That Smell?

We became concerned after they left that there was an odd smell near the newly lighted fixtures. Were they over-heating the circuits? Were we going to burn down the building? We hoped not, since it has the records of our company and two other organizations in it.

Our other theory is that there was dust on some of the fixtures that didn’t have bulbs in them before, and it was just getting heated up and burning off. That would be okay.

I also wanted to share that I got a frame for this watercolor painting we found in the Rattlesnake house when we first bought it. I’m so glad it can be protected from now on.

Just to be safe, we turned the overhead lights off when we left. We have not heard that the building burned down, so I think we’re okay and won’t have to be based out of the out-building from now on.

Good News for Cooling

We discovered when we turned the air conditioning on for the meeting last Thursday that enough of the cooling came down to the basement that we were fairly comfortable. That will help while we wait on those rewiring and HVAC renovation bids to come in!

0Shares

Electrical Improvements at Washington House

Even a simple new grate makes the house look so much better.

In this week’s visit to the Washington house, Mandi and I showed up in time to meet the electrician who’s fixing up all the outlets, light switches, etc., and installing the light fixtures. James had hoped to have some fixtures up for us to take photos of, but instead had spent some time fixing some iffy wiring. We’d rather he did that anyway!

While we were looking the nice new covers over, James had some questions. They were all really good ones, so I was glad to have the opportunity to address them. First, we found out that the two closets with light fixtures did not have light switches. That makes the ights we picked out for the spaces not work at all! He recommended some simple pull chain ones instead, which makes ssense. They’re just closets.

James Smith demonstrates what the pendant lights in the kitchen will look like from the living area.

Next he told us the spare can lights we had were too big for the allotted space in the kitchen. He wondered why we hadn’t chosen to get more of the kind we’d chosen for over the sink, and we explained we thought it would look weird. He said the shadows cast by the can lights would also look weird. We decided that if the pendants were installed at the right height, they would look much better. Conveniently, the fixture comes with the right size header, as James demonstrates in the photo.

Continue reading →

37Shares