Thursday

 

Another cold day in Florida. It was 40 degrees on our morning walk. It warmed up to 52, but it was not warm.

The electricians came back today to finish their work. The picture above is the bedroom configuration before we started. The rotary knob on top controlled the fan, the left switch controlled the light in the ceiling fan, and the switch on the right is for the bedside lamps.

For reasons unknown, the electricians cut out the wallboard beside the double switches and added a dummy third switch when they removed the rotary above it. The new switch on the left controls both the ceiling fan speed and light. The middle switch controls the bedside lamps, and the third switch does nothing.

I pointed out to everyone at every step of the process that this didn't make sense and thwarted the effort to simplify the clutter of switches.

But, it never got addressed.

Until today. 

It took persistence and photographic documentation, but we were able to get this confounding situation remedied, which involved more drywall repair, retexturing, and painting. 

All painted.

The electricians also added dimmers to the bathroom lights.

Lights on dimmer tonight.

Other dimmer lights at night

New switches in the entryway.

Left to right: entry hall light, outdoor garage/pillar lights, overhead porch light.

And they updated the dining room switch to the modern look of the new kitchen switches. No more rotary dimmer switches. They also updated the outlets in the entry hall.

And the wall switch in the living room that controls the sunroom lights.

Before the electricians left, we asked them what was the best way to go about installing the new capacitor on the ceiling fan in the living room. It would involve unhanging it and rehanging it. He said it would be best to call them later (to avoid a change order charge). They would charge by the hour to do the job. Then we told him we'd be renovating the back bathroom next and would it be best to fold the job into that project. He said, definitely add it to the next job, since they would already be here. Most of the expense is the flat fee just for showing up. The capacitor controls the fan speed which has been defective from the beginning. The fan company sent the new capacitor free of charge. When it gets installed, we'll be able to use all three speeds.

The countertop and sinks finally got installed this morning as well.

While the construction worker was here, he installed the shower shelf and hooks and the toilet paper holder. We're going to live with everything awhile to decide whether or not to hang the hand towel hooks beside the mirror. It may be too busy. If we don't hang them, we'll have hand towels folded on the countertop.

The shower shelf has slots for it to drain.

The toilet paper holder mounts in a vertical position, which will take some getting used to.

The contractor also touched up the texture on the wall repair from the bidet plug project.

All painted.

Friday, the plumber returns to hook up the new sinks and to install the shower controls. I think that will bring this project to a conclusion.