working on the living room outlet

I have been planning to replace the wall outlet in the living room for some time. The actual electrial box was loose because the wallboard around the outlet was kind of crumbled away. I also bought a brown outlet, that I thought would go with the decor better.

The plan was to remove the old outlet and box, replace the old metal box with a blue plastic box that would grip the wall and replace the old white outlet with the brown outlet. Sounds easy, but as always, there were complications. First up was the blue box itself, which was very hard to get the wires in. Once the wires were in the box, it held them pretty securely so there was very little play. As the wires are old, they were quite stiff, so that was not a good combination. I also had a surprise when I found that there were not two sets of wires, but THREE sets of wires, with two wires connected to one set of screws. Having two sets of wires, stiff wires and the blue box proved to be a combination that was pretty much unworkable. The final straw for the blue box came when I realized that the current hole in the wall was too small and that I was going to need to chip a larger hole. I don't think so...

So, out with the blue box and back in with the metal box (of course I had to disconnect the outlet again). I was able to get the metal box to screw into the wall pretty firmly, which meant this whole project actually could have been over with in about 5 mintues if I had just tried screwing the metal box in in the first place (of course I still would have had the white outlet but...). I did have more play in the wires with the metal box, but it was still a project trying to get everything hooked up. Finally got everything hooked up and screwed back into place and I was very happy when I flipped the switch and not only did the power not short out, but the outlet still works.


After that, I took one of the old baseboard registers out of my room and replaced it with a new one I had found in the closet. I have no idea how the newer baseboard registers are supposed to attach to the wall, maybe hang on srews? There is no mounting hardware or instructions included. Oh well, it is not in a place where it is in danger of getting bumped.

I still have not gotten back to work on painting the window, BUT they are calling for rain tonight. Maybe I can get that done tomorrow night or on Sunday.