Preparatory works

This one is not going to be so much about the interior design, I’m afraid. So, if looking for beautiful helpful pictures, stop right there! We’ll have a look into just how much has to be known about a house, when wanting to change a detail.

To illustrate this concept, I will send you back to scratchingthe surface post, where I told you about my first steps in redecorating. I painted my kitchen knowing full well that so much more needs to be done. Among those things, several electrical tasks. I shared my wish list in before after and encore post. It is encore time now, and you'll see hopefully as a result, more afters!

Sadly, electrical works, need electricians. One such keeps me waiting just now and the situation is on-going for 3 days and counting… But, there are things we can do ourselves, such as work out the electrical loops.

This last thing is important, because there is a limited number of consumers one can hook to a loop.

So, somewhere in your house there is an electrical switchboard, with fuses, like this one:

And, surely, if you’d follow the blog and care about your home redecoration, you may have already drawn a floor plan.

Next thing, in order to establish the loops, is mark down:

-   Lights – fixtures and switches

-   Electrical power outlets

-   Permanently connected consumers – such as fridge, washing machine, and others.

Next part is fun: set all lights on, and back to the switchboard – go on turning off the fuses – one by one. You’ll know which lights or permanent consumers go to which fuse. Mark it down.

It is trickier with the power outlets- ideally you’d have a desk light to connect and see when it goes off. That involves some more coming and going. When all is noted down – you can start drafting!

I connected the consumers to the relevant fuse and used different colours to make it easier to identify the loops:

Beautiful, but incomplete!

At this point in time I am missing the order of connections. In fact, I wouldn’t even know if it matters…

I am also missing the resistance power per fuse – would be nice to know if I’m planning to use an important consumer. For the time being though, this should work! The purpose was to find out if my gas cooking plates can go electrical, and they apparently can!

This update is a part of my original concept for the kitchen, which at present looks like that:

Ideally, I’d have new electrical plates, more lights and, the creative challenge: new tiling!

This last one is a subject for a future post as there is so much to decide and test before doing something.

Also, in the near future:

-   Painting project 2 – paint colour has to be matched to the wall-paper, sample is delivered. Now is time to find out if it really is a match!

-   Working out some colour details on project 2

-   Doing some furniture “tests” with project 1 – place identical piece where future pieces should come, see how the volumes work (note: not the shapes and not the colours!)

-   Window treatments – a very to-the-season-topic – it is the time of the year when it is hard (but necessary) to keep the sunlight out.

-   If some more time is left – take part in a competition. About this last one – while a competition is a more realistic experiment of what working with clients is like: their taste-their home-their budget, it is possibly less attractive, when I have my own house to deal with.

So, stay tuned! June will be a busy month – hope to find enough time to keep the blog going! If you have remarks on the electrical schedule – please shoot! The purpose of my blog is mostly to learn something – so go ahead and share!...