Took a longer lunch break today to check out sinks at Ohmega Salvage in Berkeley with Evan. He needed a 20" sink for the downstairs bath, which he should be writing about soon. I found one we liked on their website yesterday and went in to check it out and ended up with a different one that was less pricey and still awesome.
"to buy sink or not to buy sink"
the winner!
OK not my grandma but somebody's grandma...
I had been looking for a mid-century patio set for the house. Like pretty much everyone, I love mid-century furniture but mid-century modern was not going to work with a very rustic house from the '20s.
But mid-century furniture is not all about modern. Sub-styles of mid-century, that are NOT modernist, include ranch style (poorly named humble suburban homes), Hollywood Regency - tacky floral faux gold etc., and even mid-century Art Deco revival embodied in the disco era Xanadu movie.
Woodard was a brand famous for patio furniture from this era and now a search term that exemplifies what I was looking for. They made a range of metal outdoor furniture, from very modern to very old fashioned and floral. I was charmed by a set on an estate sale listing that was kinda halfway between floral and modern and I got on the lookout for a set with $300 as a goal for a good price. It seemed to be a pretty popular set at the time because I saw the set a few times online, and then ran across the exact set at an estate sale on Sunday (last day) so they wanted to get rid of it and were willing to let it go for $225. That's too good to say no for a matching, vintage set of four chairs and a table. I wanted to brighten them up so I ordered a six pack of large 15oz. cans of heavy duty blue enamel and got to work.
First two down
All done! Looks awesome I think. Paint is Rustoleum Professional High Performance (Industrial Strength) Enamel in some commercial blue color. I love this stuff. 15oz. cans ordered from HD online for about $33. You will need 6 150z. cans or about 7-8 regular 12oz cans.
When I met Evan and he showed me his house I definitely learned a lot about him. One of those things was his love for lamps and light fixtures. The guy is a bit of a fanatic and has turned me into one too. Not all have been moved into the house yet, but here are some waiting for their new homes.
After installing the lights, I wasn't getting them to turn on. First thing to check with my beeper (electricity detector) was power to the switch box. I wasn't getting anything from the switch boxes so I checked the fuses to see if there are any burnt ones. So I decided I should tie into the power going to the other switches by the front door. I used a piece of spare wire, held by my wire strippers (with insulated handles) to jump power from the hot light switch to the living room 3 way. I touched it to one pole on the 3 way and the light lit up! Nice! Then I connected it to the other pole and POP! Blew a fuse. The reason for this is there actually was power to the box but I just have a crappy beeper. Connecting a 110v hot to another 110v hot makes 220v.
Even for people like me who are pretty good with 3 ways, it helps to make notes. The old knob and two wires were not labeled so I had to figure out which was which.
Now I know that B wire is hot in (supposed to be black), C goes to the light somehow and when B is switched to A (common), it goes to the other switch (beeped for hot over there). Since there are only three wires, I know that if the hot comes in here, the other switch box must be connected to the lights
I started labeling the wires with tape. A legit electrician would use different colored electrical tape to mark them. I started sketching it out:
