You know that class in third grade science where you learn how to make a circuit? The one with the light bulb attached to a battery? Well that’s the last time I thought about how electricity works. So when Jeremy said “we can do it ourselves!” about installing new outlets in our house, I thought he was insane. Nevertheless, he persisted. This man was relentless in his pursuit of our new outlets.
When the electricians told him it was impossible to install an outlet on our brick wall, he said “I will prove them wrong!” And prove them wrong he did.
When the guy at the hardware store told us to just hire a handyman and that we ‘wouldn’t want to buy any more tools,’ Jeremy said “screw him, I’m buying an oscillating saw!”
When I said let’s just hire someone to cut a hole in our kitchen island to install an outlet for appliances, he said “we can do it ourselves!”
And dammit, he DID do it. Jeremy is the most determined person in the world and meets these challenges head on. He views new tasks as learning opportunities and genuinely does learn from them. My career as an electrician may have ended in third grade, but Jeremy’s is just getting started.
We knew we wanted to install new outlets on the main floor of our house to comply with code and provide enough grounded, 3-prong outlets necessary for modern life. But most of our walls are brick, making it difficult to install the electric boxes that are normally hiding behind drywall in newer homes. So Jeremy bought a chisel and hammered away at the brick, chipping out a line for the wire and a rectangle for the box to sit in.
He slapped some wet compound in the whole and squished the box in, letting it dry and cement in place. Then he compounded over the chiseled out area to hide it from sight—three layers of compound with sanding in between each one.
Now it’s nicely painted and you’d never know all the work that went into it!
As for getting an outlet in our island, he drilled a hole through the floor and pulled the wires up through the floor (we had asked our electrician to “rough in” the wires a month ago for this purpose–the wires were chilling in our basement, dangling from the rafters). Then he sawed a rectangular hole into the side panel of our island and installed an outlet in it!
Now all we have to do is get the countertop installed and cover the outlet with a plate and BAM! We have a fully functioning island. Oh did I mention he did the same thing for the power to our dishwasher and garbage disposal?
I happily sat this one out but I certainly learned a lot about how electricity works!
Us Against the House 
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