So close we can taste it

We left for Maui with work left to do on the house. Much was indeed done while we were gone, but alas, some is still ongoing.


The electrical was a bigger job than anyone imagined as the house appears to have been wired by a drunken monkey with schizophrenia high on LSD, using a roll of electrical tape and speaker wire. Every time the electrician tried to fix an obvious problem, a new one would be found. Examples:

• Yesterday, for reasons we have not yet figured out, the light switches in the bedroom no longer control the bedroom light. They did the previous day. All that happened was that the electrician wired up a new light. In a different room. On a different circuit.
• We had a 3 way switch wired incorrectly. It took over 2 hours for the electrician to find out what the guy had done. He had cross-wired hot wires with ground in one of the junctions. The "switch" was not opening and closing a circuit, it was just breaking the connection to ground. The circuit was hot at all times. Nothing short of a fire waiting to happen.

In addition to this obvious set of headaches, it turns out that while we now have a lot of lighting installed, we do not, in fact, have the light bulbs. The bulbs we need (MR-16's in a mix of 20W, 35W, 50W, shielded & unshielded) are sold out at all the shops in town including the newly opened Canadian Tire. The Canadian Tire lighting manager said he sold out within 4 days of opening 2 weeks ago, and now they're all on back order. Light bulbs are an hour's drive away.


Still, the final painting is underway, and our new hardwood has arrived so we can fix the floor. If I were an optimist, I'd say we can move in starting next week.


But it may be the week after. Or the week after that.