Quick Status for this week...

Nothing major to update midweek, however we are making progress on other lighting that is needed elsewhere throughout the house (Exterior Lights, Interior Lights, etc). Quite a few decisions have been made and many more to come in just this week alone. Its starting to get challenging, but I guess thats always fun to me (or stressful).

Ive been struggling with a stupid headache the last couple days...not sure what it is or if its just me creating it by thinking I have one. Its slightly uncomfortable though...anyhow...

Some items that have happened and are happening this week:

- Met with custom window builder to quote replacing our two front windows. We did not originally want to get them replaced, but we decided to get pricing since we have been told it would be quite expensive, however we dont know what "quite expensive" actually means. So..waiting for that quote to arrive - Im guessing it will be, but if it comes in less than expected, then heck...we'll order them.

- Finalized my Multimedia plates for each room - thats progress. Let me tell you...its hard to decide what will be obsolete in the coming years, but I made the decision to go with strictly HDMI in the bedrooms and went with the whole shabang for the Living Room - even with obsolete connector types. I know Ill never use it, but WHAT IF a day comes where you need it. Might as well be prepared.

- Lighting I ordered a few days ago started to arrive. Electricians will get them wired up in the coming week.

- Started to play with lighting location in the living room - we are keeping some character of the house, so sconces will remain, but we will relocate them and will replace the lights themselves. I started to measure out where we should have them and just send measurements and estimates of placement to the wife to decide.

- Multimedia stuff started to roll in. In particular my recessed wall outlet things. This is useful in starting to plan out placement of these boxes. Not that it matters because its behind the TV on the wall...but still need to measure out cables lengths etc. I started to cut the walls open in the living room to see how difficult it would be to fish wires through. Not bad...but definitely not super easy - labor intensive still.

- New doorbell placement/location decisions need to be made. In our last place, I bought a wireless doorbell - HATED IT. It sounded like a muffled generic ring tone you downloaded from webstie for free. This time we are going hardwired and with a normal door bell sound - not digital or anything like that...just a plain old "Ding-Dong". The house had one at some point, but when I did the demolition, I ripped it out and tore the wires up...they looked fried anyways.

- Sub Panel is HOT. Electricians...as useful as they are wired up a plug in the garage for me to start using. Definitely helps...we were running all lights and tools off of one outlet using the old wiring. Apparently something I didn't bother checking...we were loading the old wiring a bit too much and the power line was heating up. I guess thats why we needed to replace the old knob and tube stuff. Honestly, I was running a radio, lights, work lights, mini heater for my dogs and extension cords all from an outlet that was pigtailed off of a lightbulb. Not a great idea, but I never gave it much though. Thank goodness I didnt burn the house down.

- A decision has been made on the garage door! We compromised...what an accomplishment. That is being ordered tomorrow and hopefully it comes out as nice as I think it will. New door, new motor, belt driven for silence and insulated garage door for keeping the man cave warm...Im looking forward to it.

Anyhow, here are some pics and captions - good night.

All Bedrooms Plate configuration - Top plate goes behind TV, Bottom plate will be in the baseboard below.

This is for the Living room - Pics and Cable box are part of my physical layout. I do much more to illustrate it for myself.

Marked New Electrical Outlets in baseboard with painters tape and started to measure new sconce locations.

Started to take wall out to plan out Multimedia plate installation - doing this myself.

More Electrical Cables, my recessed lights for the garage and basement....

This is the garage door we are ordering. No circle things on the top or straps. We are just getting the same door, similar handle and no other hardware. This is pretty much the door we are ordering though - same shade and everything.

If youre curious - this really how I plan it. Too lazy to draw it in a program, so I just hand drew my ideas. Its legit and it helps me decide what needs to be purchased and where things belong. Im very visual, so this is a must when I do stuff.