The great battle of the living room remodel is nearly over. The big guns (nailers and saws have gone silent, so I'm sending in the infantry to mop up.

Other than the entry wall area, with more time consuming work, we're focusing on room re-habitability. We need to reclaim our dining room from the heaps of living room stuff currently occupying the space. I'll get to that entry area later.

With the molding installed, I started with some spackling, hiding all the nail holes and fine tuning the mitered joints. I used the kind of spackle that goes on pink and turns white when dry.

Occasionally, I'd have to tap a nail in where a head was protruding. There'd been a point when I had feeble-mindedly forgotten to turn the compressor on, leaving the pressure too low to properly sink a nail. So, out came Sweetness  for some hard-core nail-setting action. Of course my nail set was missing in the messy garage, so I used a big ol' finish nail instead. 

Sweetness don't care.

Before you ask, the fan came with the house. We might buy new blades.

The filler dried fast in our super-low humidity, so I was able to give it a quick touch up with sandpaper immediately after taking a snack break.

Following that tedious task (the filler not the snacks), it was on to caulking, which quickly made a difference in how neat and crisp the room looked. 

The big base molding got its fill of caulk too. 

The project devolved into my least favorite part, painting the molding. Between flooring adhesive, caulk, and paint, this project has had more than its share of messy stuff. 

The next morning, it was clear that my edging skills were deficient. The caulked, painted edge wasn't neat enough at the crown molding line, an amateur finish. I busted out the Frog Tape,  as well as the armpit of one of my favorite work shirts (favorite = free).

A quick dash of the wall paint..

... and I zipped off the Frog Tape, while the paint was still a bit wet, for a super-crisp finished edge. I love this stuff! It has some sort of magical property that creates a tight seal when paint hits it, preventing any bleeding. It beats the stuffing out of regular masking tape.

I'm really going to miss that shirt.

Next step, replace the outlets. I killed the circuit, ignored the howls from the next room over the loss of XBox Minecraft power, and pulled out the old tool pouch.

Pop out the plug and,...ughhh! 

I don't think I can blame this one on my DIY predecessor. I suspect the original, installing electrician wired these receptacles. Maybe it was common in 1979, but today it's frowned upon use a receptacle as a pass through device.

It's not a wire nut, it's an oportunity for power loss and failure. They had landed three of each wire (Black (hot) and White (neutral)) on the plug, two in the stab-ins and one on the screw.

The wires were wrapped around the screws counter clockwise too. I always wrap it clockwise so that it pulls snug when the screw is tightened (I don't like flimsy stab in connections, but they are technically OK to use). Finally, the wires were wadded in the box like a rats nest. Nice neat S folds please. 

 Haven't we had enough fires in this neighborhood?

The entire circuit passes through this one receptacle. There's no reason for that. I like to add a small piece of wire from the receptacle, a "pig tail" and wire all the like-colored conductors together with a nice tight wire-nut with no copper showing. Piece of cake.

I called in the local inspector from the Department of Backwards Snowman Shirts to check my work.

Success!!

With the detail work done, we are ready to start moving back in. We're in the home stretch, but there's still a lot left to complete. 

Next up, the mighty wall storage / TV stand unit.

Non-sponsored post - Fisher's Tools of Tempe, AZ and Klein Tools got to be in the spotlight because somewhere along the line, I got my hands on this sweet, bright orange T-shirt. Sadly, it's probably the last time it will be featured, due to the armpit failure. I'm just a fan of Fisher's, Klein, and Frog Tape.