It's taken me a while to get around to finishing up the guest bath. The main cause of the delay has been trying to understand the electrical wiring in my house. Being paranoid while working on electrical wiring has kept me from getting a few jolts. I keep a visual/audible current detector in my pocket at all time and have been known to test the wires multiple times without even leaving the room. This time I isolated and turned off the circuit that I was going to work on and started running wires. The room had both the vanity light and fan/light on the same switch. I wanted to separate these two to different switches and in the process remove the side lights and add one horizontal one over the mirror. The good news about this story is I was forced to venture into the attic and was pleasantly surprised with its clean layout and uber high head clearance (9' at ridge). This is a huge luxury compared to my previous house where I had to crawl down the center of the attic on my belly to not hit my head.
When it was time to connect the new wiring to the existing the sun was setting and I was losing natural light. I decided to see if the hallway light worked or not. I flipped the switch and the light came on. Being paranoid I tested the exposed wires once again but this time I magically had current. Well after days of tracking the wires through several rooms on multiple floors I determined I had a common neutral and located it. I couldn't find a way to separate the circuits without large quantities of demolition so I put it back the way I found it. This of course after I spoke with an electrical engineer and determined that with the minimal loads occurring on separate phases I'd be ok. I will be revising a circuit diagram for the breaker panel identifying this detail.
I was able to finish and seal most of the base cabinet. It turned out alright for it being boring old oak. I've already changed paint colors a couple times mixing some browns with the red to tone it down and blend with the vanity better. I added one "accent" wall behind the mirror to keep the red glow off of your face when you're at the sink. I'm still not sure the color is completely there... but its good enough for now.
The new setup is a vast improvement over the existing (see previous blogs). I'm sure I'll tweak things here and there until it clicks. The space got new wiring, separate switches, flooring, vanity, counter, sink, hardware, lights, paint, wainscot and chair rail and a new toilet seat!
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