Representative Plugs

January 21st, 2008

The kitchen DIY project is proceeding slowly. Initially I was off work sick and that meant I was also off DIY too. I sensibly decided to follow the advice given by the news and not go spreading my winter vomiting bug to other people. It was only when I went back to work and actually caught the winter vomiting bug that I realised that all I had was a cold. So I was off last week too in a follow-up illness.

All this meant that my wife finally snapped yesterday and demanded that some progress was made. So I made some, by vowing to install some new plugs by the end of the day, including a fancy new switch for the outdoor light which it did not previously have.

I really feel that this project is representative of my DIY skills generally, so I would like to explain some of the key points of my plugs installation. You may wish to observe its finer aesthetic qualities in the linked photo above.

Please note:

• The carefully cut hole that the plugs reside within, and the generous space surrounding it.
• The crack in the light switch from the over-tightening of an over-keen electric screwdriver.
• The stepped positioning, in terms of alignment, depth and angle.
• The complete lack of an earth wire in one of the switches (I’m not telling you what one).
• The hand-build wooden frame connecting the plug boxes to the brickwork. This is built (In part) from bits of old chipboard recovered from the garden, dried off the the oven at gas mark 1 and broken into random small fragments by hand.
• The single screw holding it all onto the wall, positioned somewhere near the top so that pulling out a plug makes it all wobble slightly.
• The two cables going to the extractor fan from the left-hand switch. I don’t know why there were two cables. It’s possible that when you switch on the fan, you’re also switching on something else too. I just don’t know what that is.

Needless to say, after a days work my wife has phoned an electrician who has agreed to come out and do it properly. I think I’ll stick to painting.

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