Day 872: Let there be light

Now that we had an easier way to get up into the loft, it was time to shine a bit more light on the other section so I could eventually get to the task of boarding things over. However, part of me wondered if I'd really want to see what I was getting into given how bad the other side was when I first got up there (see here). But hey, maybe I'd find some more archaeological treasures. 

I elected to go with the same Philips directional LED lights that I used on the other part of the loft. Not because they were particularly good or cheap, just because I like things matchy-matchy. Besides., the whole world will see my work on the Interweb and I can't exactly have non-coordinated lighting.. how embarrassing. 

This job was actually pretty straightforward as the switched lighting circuit was already hooked up in the other section - I just needed to run a new 1.5mm cable to the new lights. The only difficult part was installing the lights. I wanted them mounted up fairly high which meant that I had to stand up on the ceiling joists to drill the holes to fix them. At the time, I had no idea how much weight the joists were meant to support and I didn't want to have a Chevy Chase Christmas Vacation moment (see here). Needless to say, as the comedic value wouldn't have justified the pain and damage, I was a bit more careful.

I also brought up my trusty work light stand to provide some additional lighting while I was working up there. This once again came in handy. The legs were wide enough to straddle the joists and it was invaluable to be able to position the light on the area that I was working on.

And you see those pipes running up and down the photos? A little piece of history. They were the original gas lighting runs which were common in houses before electricity became popular around WW1 (see here). A lot of respect to the people hand cutting and threading these things on site long before power tools. I don't think I'd like to be doing DIY back then (no power tools, no cars, no Amazon) ... It sounded like real work.

I'm sure the loft was a one way route. Things seemed to go up there but nothing ever came back down. Hence the old pipes, old wires, old slate and a bunch of other rubbish. Unfortunately, no antiques or other valuable archaeological finds. I don't know why I keep hoping to find some ...

Anyway, now with the monster gone, the steps secure and the lights on, I was fully out of excuses from having to lug all those boards up into the attic. Not looking forward to that.