Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Adding a kitchen outlet


As it would figure, the perfect little nook for our toaster oven has no electricity near it (see left side of photo). Instead, all of the kitchen's electricity is to the right-side of the sink. My hopes of putting an outlet on the far left wall were dashed, when I discovered there was a horizontal stud in the plaster, where the counter top meets the wall. After wasting some time trying to figure out how I would get through the stud, I decided to take an easier approach.
Pulling off the siding of an old house isn't as difficult as it would seem. The first step was to remove the window trim, in order to allow access to the whole piece of siding. Then GENTLY pry the siding to pull the nails from the wall stud. Piece of cake. I still managed to break one of the pieces.

I ended up taking electricity from the same breaker as the other kitchen outlets, to make things simple. And there was a junction box located conveniently beneath the kitchen floor.
After cutting a hole in the drywall, and installing the electrical box, I was ready to roll. The white cable seen in the photo is just a feeder. I ended up pulling a metal-clad cable to the electrical box to be safe. On the other side of the wall, I installed a GFI outlet, since it's in a (potentially) wet location, and a light switch, for a future project :o) And voila! A happy toaster oven . And happy siding!

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