We’re sticking down the tiles. Put glue down—you have to wait for it to cure, it has to be seen to at that point—and an accident locked the bathroom door. We—own no key.
Help is at hand, however—I have mad burglar skillz. I found a cheap pair of scissors of a thinness that would serve and, pop! We’re in.
Today Jane has started re-tiling the bath, has designed a sofit with lighted nooks for bric a brac, to hold the new lights, whiich she has also wired, fished a new power line from one socket through a stud to reach the area desired, and in short we now have a fan, a new rocker switch instead of the old toggle, a new fourplex constantly live circuit, a new duplex power socket up in the sofit, a new rocker cutoff for that, and a new socket with that for the hair dryer. Suffice it to say if we had just called an electrician—we would be out many hundreds of dollars. We are still tiling (after supper). And I am making real progress on the book.
That’s today. Jane wires. I burgle.
Mmmm, GFI in that circuit somewhere? Its very cheap insurance…
Oh, we do wherever there’s a chance of water and electricity meeting.
You obviously had a mis-spent youth, CJ… 😉
Yay for progress!
My British self is flinching at the thought of sockets and rocker switches in a bathroom, but I lived in America long enough to know that the rules — and the electricity — are different. (Only pull-cord switches are allowed here in 240-volt land, and maybe a 2-pin shaver socket.)
You could always install an Atevi style bathroom – the hole with lots of towels.
Locking yourself out of a bathroom. Usually it’s the other way around, but then you lot have no shortage of creativity. I will be expecting complete photos of finished project. I told my friend about your Christmas gifts to each other — best laugh she’d had all week. Reminded me of the time my dad put a department-store gift-wrapped, clothes dimension box under the tree for my mom. When she opened it, it was one of those round metal light shades, a light socket and 10 feet of electrical conduit. (she wanted another light in the garage — )
Lol! Yep, two saws and a couple of medicine cabinets!
Aren’t most interior doors, like bedrooms and bathrooms provided with a small key that opens the door in the event someone has locked themselves in? I know we had a bunch of them with our house, but then, that’s new construction, too. Handy to have if there’s a medical emergency in the bathroom, or one of the kids refuses to come out of their bedroom, etc.
Anyway, it’s great you have a division of labor skills between the two of you, and of course, Shu the Supervisor.
Our house came without one, lost sometime between 1954 and 2012…a situation we do plan to remedy at Lowe’s or wherever: I can’t believe they don’t sell these things. Either that or we keep that pair of scissors in a convenient drawer. We always put the key on the molding above the door…but no such luck in this place.
Hmmm, so did mine, but I bought from a couple with three kids which is perhaps explanation enough. The one house I grew up in that did have said key, and little round hole, the “key” was just a straight piece of metal, 1/4″ tall, 3/32″ wide, and just over an inch long, excluding the “handle”. I dare say a small flat-blade screwdriver would work. I used to carry one for adjusting my sliderule. I’m sure it’s around here somewhere.
Yeah for progress! On tile, on wiring, on soffit, on lighting and bricabrac shelves, and most especially on THE book! I’m starting to get antsy for Intruder (release date 6 March – only 5 weeks and a day to go)
My bathroom doorknob has a small hole in the center. Whey I inadvertently locked it, shortly after I moved in, I looked at it and tried jabbing a bamboo skewer (the perfect diameter) through it. Presto; open door!
Yep, same proposition. If you can get something far enough in to push that little trip thingee, it will turn.
I first met one of these locks when my baby brother managed to lock himself and the key into the bathroom. Yep, that brother.
“Jane wires, I burgle.” — There is a good book in there somewhere close by.
Hospital bathroom doors (at least in the USA) can be unlocked simply by inserting the blade of your bandage scissors into the door handle’s slit. Just sayin’
I know that moving or selling the house is the furthest thing from your mind right now, but will there be any potential permitting problems, since the wiring was not done by a licensed electrician, despite being to code? Around here anything more complicated than replacing a switch or installing a ceiling fan is supposed to a. have a permit and b. be done by a licensed electrician. Ditto plumbing work; Heaven forbid they discover I replaced my own toilet. After residing in the same house for a few decades, I have no idea how the County plans to track such things. I’d be quite surprised if anyone kept 20 year old receipts for contractor work.
Only if an inspector throws a snit. “Homeowner” may do anything he pleases, and the worst that would happen is having an inspector say a particular socket should be GFI—if they did, we wouldn’t be required to document how it got changed so long as the next pass had a gfi socket there—regardless of whether it was even hooked up. The inspections are all ‘surface’ inspections: they turn on taps to see if they run, and look at the nature of electrical sockets, and whether or not your basement has exit windows, regardless of the fact the things are rusted shut and haven’t opened in all the time the house has stood.
We’re supposed to have a permit for anything that changes the loadbearing structure, or for the insertion of a ‘new’ electrical circuit at the fuse box—but not the insertion of a new box in the wall.