Weekend Warriors...

Today we decided to finish off the rest of the garage work. When removing drywall, lathe and plaster or whatever is on the walls...you are always left with some boring work, but it needs to be done or you pay someone to do it. Its easy enough to take it on, but its also not the most exciting...removing nails.

Like all the other walls, RonDZ and I had to finish what we started and that we did. Unlike a lot of the other walls...this wall used real old school nails. Like, take a hammer and hammer it in. Most of the other walls we cleaned up were screw nails which were easily taken out with power tools...not the garage.

I dont know how many nails there were...but it was on the walls and ceiling. Boring but easy and the only thing to look forward to is the music and the next track that might come on when the iPhones are connected. If I were to put a number to the amount of nails just in the garage...maybe 500??? I dont know.

Its hard to tell, but those rusted things with residue of drywall are nails. We removed each and everyone in the garage.

This was just the beginning...decided to snap a photo before I forgot, but the garage was full of nails when we were done. Unfortunately, due to limited lighting, it was dark when we finished and the photo couldnt capture it without better lighting. It was crazy...

So other work that started today was the rough electrical. Basically bridging the Main Panel outside the house to a new Sub-Panel we are putting in the house. Since I am picky and always need room to expand, I requested a bit of overkill on the Sub-Panel (aka Sub). The sub I got ended up being pretty large for the size of house and probably a bit too much power than needed. In short, the main panel outside is 130 amp....we brought 100 amp in the house. Usually 50 amp will be enough for our size house on the sub and some other electrical can remain on the main...but I decided to use the main panel for a master on/off type area and move EVERYTHING (all breakers) inside. No need to go outside anymore in the event of a breaker going off. Makes it simple and more convenient - I guess its more like the modern houses now. Yay.

In order to achieve this, we needed a cable that was rated for the proper power we were supplying. My electrician called me the day before and asked if I wanted to spend the extra $ on the massive cable...and of course I said yes. So we ended up with a massive cable that needed to be routed from the main to the sub and since all the walls were out, it was done CLEAN.  The black cable in the pics below is the new cable feeding the sub-panel. It doesnt look big in the pictures...but that thing is heavy duty (4 gauge if I am correct with the electrical talk)...65ft of cable was something like $420.00 or so.

The cable in the center in the joist is the new cable feeding the Sub-Panel.

A better pic.

As we begin to wire more and more items, all the cables will be routed similar to this. In fact, that is new cable going to the kitchen. Still early...just a sample.

Here are new cables popping up in the Laundry Room where our new panel is located.

That massive cable that was in the pics above feeding this. Those 3 cables and a ground wire is what is contained in there. Oh...and the New Sub-Panel is bolted in and ready to rock! 

...this is just the beginning. This will eventually get pretty full and you will see all the circuit breakers in there when completed. Should be clean and labeled properly. This is exciting for us...cant wait. 

This is clearly the beginning and there is plenty more copper to spread throughout the house. Everything is moving forward as planned and each day that passes we get closer and closer to completion. Though we are still a ways out (as we wait for Windows and Cabinets that have been ordered)...this is the prep work thats needed in order to move forward with those other things (minus Windows - those can go in anytime they arrive).

More to come - updates will probably be pictures with captions only for the duration of this part of the work unless something interesting comes up.