I can’t take credit for this one.

Stage Two involved installing the new shower fan (I really should decide/find out what these things are called; I call it something different every time I refer to it) in the new ceiling above where the bulkhead used to be. While the actual work involved didn’t frighten me all that much, the location of the work did: in my unfinished attic, balancing precariously on rafters and trusses and other things that mean “balance beams.” I am a fat man, kids. I know intellectually that I’m not so substantial that I am likely to come crashing down through the roof so long as I’m not dumb enough to put my foot down in the wrong place, but I have never had terribly good balance and the simple fact is I’m probably going to put my foot down in the wrong place at some point.

(Fun fact: I’m not afraid of heights. Or, at least, I’m not at all afraid to be high off the ground– just so long as my feet are planted firmly. I don’t like being balanced precariously precisely because of my not-great balance issues; I’d be perfectly happy up on the observation deck of the Sears Tower, but if you ask me to climb an eight-foot ladder, especially if you want me at the actual top of the damn thing, I’m gonna side-eye the hell out of you before deciding if my sense of masculinity insists that I actually do it. It depends on the ladder, too; I’ll climb twenty feet on a ladder that feels solid before I climb six feet on a dodgy one. And while I’ve never actually done it, I’m pretty sure I’d be perfectly happy to skydive given the chance.)

Anyway, the solution was to call in my father-in-law, who worked as a general contractor and is much more comfortable with this sort of thing. And it’s turned out to be an annoying job, too– the construction of the thing mandated that it had to be installed from below, which I wasn’t counting on and which required some fancy drywall cutting to make sure we could actually slide it up through the preexisting ceiling without tearing it down. Then there was a random extraneous board in the way which had to be cut out (not a big deal) and a damn thermostat wire in pretty much exactly the wrong goddamn place, which he worked around. Meanwhile, I spent a lot of time on a stepstool in the tub giving my shoulder muscles a workout by holding the damn thing up above my head in proper positioning while he (I swear, on purpose) took as long as he possibly could to mark holes, predrill, and then finally screw the fan into place.

Which, as it turned out, was as far as the work got, because guess what else we have in our attic? Aluminum wiring. Which has a nasty habit of causing fires when spliced or pigtailed with copper wire. Which is sort of a problem, especially since this is going to be in an attic full of blown-in insulation, which is allllllll sorts of fire-hazardy. (Minor pride moment: I noticed this first; all those hours of watching Mike Holmes shows finally paid off!) Anyway, this isn’t an insurmountable issue, it just means that we have to get special connectors to join the wires together and we didn’t happen to have any on hand. So the remainder of the hookup is happening today while I’m at work; theoretically by the time I get home tonight we’ll have a functioning shower fan again.

Just in time for me to wreck the shower surround… tomorrow? Monday? We’ll see.

Whee!