Month: August 2010

To the casual observer, these photos are going to be so dull (apologies) but we’re so excited, since they represent a huge step forward for the fish tank! Kevin stayed home Monday through Wednesday this week, and made huge progress. He really cleaned out and reorganized the garage (it does become a catch-all), ripped out the old work bench and odd shelving above it, and then was here all day Wednesday while the electrician fixed our circuits, installed new outlets (GFCI!), installed boxes that the backup power will plug into. Yay! Here’s a before of the workbench/fishtank cleaning area/sink.

And the dramatic clean-slate after shot:

(The paper taped to the wall is the permit; the permit inspector signed off this morning!)

Note especially the new laundry sink! It’s not hooked up yet (hence the old one still sitting there) but I am SO excited to have a new one. Not that laundry sinks have improved since whenever the last one was installed, and not that the new one won’t have its share of cobwebs soon enough, but the old one had so much spilled paint and shellacked-on dirt and uncleanable grossness that the shiny smooth new one feels like a major luxury. We use this sink close to daily, though, so the upgrade will be put to good use.

Close up of the garage outlets:

Many of them have individual switches (for cleaning or resetting certain pumps or components) and all of them are GFCI-protected. The silver boxes are for items that will run on backup power if needed (heat, certain pumps and filtration, limited lighting) – the plug will go down to a grid of deep cycle batteries.

There’s also a new outlet in the “fish room” (aka, the family room space connected to the kitchen) centered behind the new tank space, so that we don’t have to loop extension cords across the room (yay, baby proofing). The outlet is the one on the left in this photo (again, thrilling photography!)

And now we can start working to set up the new fish tank pieces that we’ve been accumulating for months! 🙂

PS. While the electrician was here, he installed new garage lights so it’s now BRIGHT in there!! Here are two of the three new utility fixtures:

An unbelievable difference, and a great new space to start working on the new tank!