As a fine musician once said... "I'm downright amazed at what I can destroy with just a hammer." Well, in my case I mostly used a breaker bar. It's funny how a seemingly little project turns into a big project so very fast. The task list this morning included just a few items: rewire back hall light, install basement stair light, build base for upstairs washer/dryer. I was sure I'd be onto the last item within a couple of hours, and maybe get all three done today. I ended up taking all day on the first item. We had rewired the light at the top of the back stairs ages ago, but never got around to doing it's downstairs sibling because, well, we're bad at finishing projects, and it involved going back into the dark, cold, itchy attic. I started the seemingly simple task by attaching the new wire (14/2 romex) to the old wire (100 year old cloth covered ungrounded cable), then I went into the attic and pulled on the old wire, hard. It pulled a few inches up, and then stopped. I went back downstairs and scratched my head - it appears that it should have pulled, but something was stopping it. I resigned myself to the idea that I'd have to take all the plaster off the ceiling before I could see what was hanging it up. It was going to come down soon anyway, so why not now? Now, if demolishing plaster sounds like a lot of work, it is, and it's messy too. It's not just plaster that comes down - it's bits of wood, it's insulation, it's dust, it's mouse poop. Basically, everything that could make it's way into the ceiling cavity in 100 years. I went upstairs for some heavy plastic and masking tape and taped up the doorway to the kitchen. No mouse poop in Z's kitchen! Not if I could help it. I climbed the ladder and proceeded to swing the hammer in the direction of the plaster. I managed to get some down, but it was slow going. Now where did I put that glorious tool, the breaker bar? The breaker bar is a nearly 3 foot long chunk of steel and looks like a crowbar, but twice as thick. It's the perfect demolition tool. Things went a bit faster then. Soon, I had the whole ceiling demolished. Heck, I had the room taped off and the perfect tool in hand, why not take down the walls too? Within the hour, I had the whole room stripped down to the lath, and a layer of rubble 4 inches thick on the floor. From previous experience, I knew that taking the lath off too would mean lots of fiddly work with removing nails, and the drywall would then never come flush with the trim - our new technique is to remove the plaster, which is about as thick as 1/4 inch drywall, but leave the lath in place. Because I didn't want plaster raining down on us before the ceiling drywall went up, I also removed every other lath board in the ceiling - this released the plaster 'keys', but still held the blown fiberglass insulation in place. To get the plaster out of the house, I used a snow shovel and a 5 gallon bucket. It took 11 buckets (2 lath, 9 plaster), and our driveway now sports a stylish pile of rubble to show the neighbors how handy we are. Finally, I was able to see why the wire wasn't fishing. I removed a bit of blown fiberglass, most of which rained down on me, reached up into the ceiling and discovered a whole new world! The space I had accessed is attic space, but it's hidden behind the knee wall of the 'bonus room' above the kitchen. I'd always known it was there, but never actually seen it. COOL. The original insulation is visible (newspaper), and I discovered a few things up there - two old metal table legs, an old cigarette tin, and an invitation to a lodge meeting from 1912! It's amazing what you find in old houses! OK, on with the show, as they say. What was it that was stopping me from just pulling the new wire up to the attic? A single cable staple, not 6 inches from the light fixture. If I could have reached up there and released it, I could have been done with the whole job in a half hour. Well, at least I got to use the breaker bar. *rolls eyes* Once the staple was removed, I fished the wire, installed a blue plastic electrical box, then a ceramic single bulb fixture to the ceiling and connected the other end of the wire to a junction box in the attic. In the basement, I flipped the circuit back on, and back upstairs revealed a problem. The downstairs light was on all the time - the switch didn't do anything! Alas, I wired it to the wrong box! Back in the attic following wires around lead me to the light at the top of the stairs, where I spliced the downstairs wire into the upstairs fixture. Finally, the light works, the wall plaster is down and ready for drywall, the ceiling is better insulated and I even put up a vapor barrier. Tomorrow, we will go light fixture hunting to replace the 50 cent ceramic jobber. Next up on the short list - install a light fixture in the basement stairs. Aw heck, maybe I'll just rip the wall down, open it up to the back hallway and make it into a mudroom.