You Never Know What You Will Find

We have found that this phrase is one often shared among owners of old homes, and our home has proven to be no exception.  From pipes that go nowhere, to walls inside other walls, and an exterior door that doesn't lead in, our house has given us all kind of head-scratchers.

One recent oddity was discovered while fixing up the room that will become our children's playroom.  Since many of the old electrical receptacles have layers of paint on them, I like to replace them as we work from room to room.  This particular room had a receptacle that was actually right in the base trim!  While this is the only outlet like this in our house, I have seen this in other homes in our neighborhood and it is fairly common.  Regardless, I fully intended on moving the outlet up into the wall and patching the painted trim.

This is not exactly up to code.

What I wasn't expecting was to find that there was no outlet box.  This particular outlet was just hanging out without anything between the wires and the wooden trim and lathe.  Further exploration yielded the light switch was the same.  Wow, that is dangerous!

New home and old home of the outlet(s).

 So I added a box further up the wall where there are now two, much safer, outlets.  The light switch also has its own plastic box as well as a Dr. Seuss's One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish switch plate to go with the playroom theme.

To Here or To There?

You just never know what you will find!