The Quarter-Inch Marathon plus . . .
The beginning of the end of the middle of the project that never seems to have an end is nigh.
So I am distracted. We’ve been “under construction of six months and without a kitchen for three months. The house is now coated with a fine layer of white plasterboard dust which is, all in all, a good thing, because it means that walls are taking shape and maybe, just maybe, there is light at the end of the tunnel. (This is where you find out the light is actually the headlight of an oncoming train.)
Instead of spending the mornings writing (mornings are my good writing times) I was moving a switchbox up a quarter of an inch.
That doesn’t sound like much, a quarter of an inch.
But here’s the thing. The switchbox is now enclosed in sheetrock (contractors’ preferred term for plasterboard or wallboard). The switchbox is connected to three sets of electrical cables that constrain its movement. Additionally, it is attached to a stud with two nails and a contractor screw (tougher and harder than an ordinary screw).
The Quarter-Inch Marathon
So here’s what I had to do.
Remove the contractor screw. Easy.
Cut through the two nails with my shortie hacksaw. (Took a little time, but doable with the right tools.)
Remove a quarter inch or so of wallboard above the box.
Check all of this with a level, to be sure the switch plates on the wall will all be at the same level.
Check again with a level to be sure the switch plates will be on the level (is that where the expression comes from?)
Drill pilot holes through the box (plastic) and screw it to the stud in its new position.
Check again with a level to be sure the switch plates will be on the level. (Only one end is!)
Use bits of wallboard to wedge the left end of the box up to get the box level.
Check again with a level to be sure the switch plates will be on the level.
Use a big squirt of Goop (I’ve written about Goop) to be sure the wallboard wedges don’t move.
Find a container of patching compound (I was looking for patching plaster but couldn’t find it) and figure out how to open it. (Wedging it open with a screwdriver worked okay.)
Fill the messy looking space under the box with patching compound.
Leave it to the spackling team to finish it off better and make it look right.
Leave it to the Contractor?
So, why was I doing this. Well, first off, I had asked the contractor to move the box from where the electricians first put it. I’m responsible for buying the cabinets and I saw the box was going to be halfway over the end of the counter that eventually would be under it. It would be a wart in the backsplash—have to be cut around. Not good. My contractor is a kind of grumpy guy, but he did what I asked him to do—adding a 2 x 4 and some other scrap to the stud to “move” the box. That’s where that extra contractor screw came from—not the electrician who installed the box in the first place.
But when the contractor moved the box, he put it a quarter-inch too low. It wasn’t very noticeable when the boxes were just hanging there in space, attached to the framing. But when the wallboard was installed—it was painfully obvious. The switch box and the outlet box next to it weren’t “on the level.” There were off, just a bit.
So what should I do:
Live with it, and notice the error every day for as long as I live in the house?
Ask the grumpy contractor to fix the mistake he made fixing the (sort of mistake) I made?
Do it myself?
I chose option number three and I think it’s going to work out fine.
Earth Day
It was yesterday, I know. I’m running late on a lot of things.
But here’s a link to Bill McKibben’s Substack with “nothing but good news” in celebration of Earth Day.
McKibben’s Substack is called The Crucial Years. It’s always good. Think about subscribing. It has a free option.
I Sold a Book!
Not just a book—a copy of my play: MuchAdoDotCom. I have no idea who bought it. If it was one of you, kind readers, thank you. If not, then it’s something close to a miracle because my books are so buried in Amazon’s inventory that it’s darn near a one in a hundreds of thousands chance that anyone sees them.
(Sometime I’ll do a post about Amazon advertising. I’ve used it a bit. It’s an adventure—a very unprofitable adventure.)
If you or someone you know is connected with a theatre group that might be interested in a really exciting, innovative, rom-com play that also delivers a message—e-mail me. I’ll send you a copy.
Anon.
Ridge