Bartering

Here's a totally unrelated picture of Georgia taking a break from working the miter saw. She loves making precise cuts.

For the electrical in our master bedroom, in order to move forward we needed to run a wire through the walls from the attic to the basement to the breaker box. This is a very challenging task; the older the house the worse it is. After 5 days of trying to run the wires through the walls - with the strings and hooks and other tools - we officially gave up. We didn't want to tap into the existing wires up there because it's the same circuit for the living room, sun room and dining room... already overloaded. Back when we had the electrician wire the rest of the house, we skipped this room because of the wall construction. And we tried all the tricks to do it ourselves except cutting giant holes. Our plaster lath walls are filled with insulation, ash, and all sorts of weird things (DEAD MUMMIFIED THINGS) I didn't want to cut into. 

So we gave up. Mike called the electrician to see how much it would cost to run this one wire. Best news ever? Our electrician needed a techie to show him how to install new memory in his computer - so Mike and Dan the Electrician bartered. On Sunday Dan and Mike ran the wire through the walls and to the electrical box. It turns out the internet lied to us (big shock there I know) about the "best" ways to run wire through the wall. I checked multiple sources to cross reference - and they were all wrong. We went at it backwards (going down instead of up)... but at least now we know! Then Mike showed Dan how to upgrade the memory in his computer. It was great, and it was FREE.

So now we have power running to our master bedroom and Mike can finally finish installing the lights and the outlets, then we can do the closet floor. Just a few steps and a matter of days away (I'm counting down) from finally moving back into our master bedroom. Finally!