Let there be ... cans! And lose the jacks!

With the framing almost complete, the house is done growing up and must now grow within itself and become integrated into its whole. The first step is electrical wiring. Over the last couple of weeks, Patrick, our master electrician, has been busy putting in outlets, switches and recessed light enclosures, affectionately known as "cans." As important as this is to the chez je ne
sais qui (No, it's not a typo. Yes, I can pun in French when absolutely necessary, but I really hate myself for doing it afterwards) of this structure, visually, it is no match for the massive concrete walls, renegade steel beams, and the magical blue realm.

They may be small and unassuming, but these things are everywhere.



Even next to skylights:



In some places, because of the way the joists have been placed, placing the cans so that the lights are properly aligned and actually shine some light where they are supposed to gets a bit tricky and Patrick has to draw on his many years as Tetris master to squeeze the enclosures into the tight spaces available.



But even the most skilled artisan of electrical enclosure placement, must sometime confront the ultimate question: "What the ... ?"



Another issue is whether we need to light the stairs themselves. Remember that once the elevator is installed, the nice open hole in the middle of the staircase will be walled off and waterfall of light in the middle of the staircase will be dammed off at the top floor causing a drought of light to blight the lower reaches of the staircase. (Ok; so it's not exactly Hemingway. You can't say that I did not warn you.) The problem with putting lights under the stairs is the center support beam makes it impossible to center the light on the stairs. Here we are experimenting with different configurations.




An unrelated item of good news is that the house is finally level and we do not need the two hydraulic jacks that were keeping it propped up any more.




With the jacks in place, the house looked like it was in the middle of a road side assistance call from AAA. It would have been bad enough to have a car on blocks in front of the house, but having the house itself on blocks is beyond tacky.

For those of you still awake at this point, there is more exciting news. We asked the crew to modify this flight of stairs to create a secret storage space under the stairs.



I am told that a certain boy wizard, whom I cannot name for copyright and trademark reasons, has expressed an interest in renting the space as a vacation home. Negotiations are ongoing. I will let you know what happens.

Also, I finally ordered the windows and in 6-8 weeks, most of the holes in the building will be plugged with expensive layers of glass trapping minute quantities of (apparently very very expensive) Argon gas between them. It would be nice to cut down on the draft a bit.

Next week, more wiring, a big battery, and maybe we finally get to the plumbing.