Stairs: part 5 - stair lights

We've come a long way with the stairs. At the end of 2015, it still looked like this:

But now the stairs were almost complete (and amazing to think that all that equipment was somehow shoehorned underneath...)

The final task was to install stair lights. We did have the option of installing them into the steps themselves when the staircase was constructed, but preferred to have lighting in the wall, as it should cast a nicer glow from the side.

Luckily when the electrics were installed, we fitted a mains supply under the stairs and this was connected to switches at the top and bottom of the stairs in preparation for these lights.

Deciding exactly where to put the lights took some planning. We made paper templates of the light fittings and tried placing them in various positions to see what looked best. We also wired up the lights at night and tried them out in various positions to test exactly where the light and shadows would fall. 

There are a lot of water pipes, electrical wires and wooden studs buried in the wall behind the stairs, so it was important that the lights were positioned away from these.

Once the position of the lights had been decided, we could start cutting. It was slightly nerve-wracking chopping big chunks out of the wall, especially as we were having to avoid so many pipes, wires and studs. 

The Fermacell was much tougher than plasterboard (more like a cement board), but could be cut using a multi-tool.

One hole cut, three to go...

We didn't want the stairs lit up like Las Vegas, so decided to fit a light above every third step. It should be enough to see the edge of each step when walking at night, but hopefully while casting a more subtle glow across the hall.  

Getting the cable routed to feed each light was a challenge. We had to use a piece of stiff wire to poke down from where each light fitting would be installed...

...down to a hole under the stairs. We could then use the guide wire to pull through the electrical cable.

The lights are low-power LED and use a small transformer to step down the voltage. Wiring the lights wasn't too difficult and since the electrics for the house had already been signed off, we didn't need to involve an electrician. 

Once all the wiring was in place, we clipped the light fittings into position. We chose the rectangular, stainless steel design to echo the same patterns in the front door, hall windows and alcove light.

It's alive!
 

We were really pleased with the amount of light they produced. During the day, the effect was very subtle...

...but at night, the stair lights really serve a purpose - illuminating the position of every step to (hopefully) avoid any disastrous slips. Falling down stairs made of glass and oak wouldn't be too pleasant. 

The house still has a long way to go until it's finished, but is feeling more like a home every day. Especially with the Christmas decorations going up. The site inspector was most impressed with our new tree.

Here's a sight you don't see every day - the site inspector being inspected by our neighbour, a barn owl who lives in the dilapidated barn next door. (Click on pic to enlarge). 

The owl and the pussycat, not at sea, in a beautiful pea-green field...

Outside: Ducting for internet and new postbox

The new house needed to be connected to the internet. We already had a dropwire that ran from a nearby pole to the old house (highlighted by the blue dotted line in the picture below) but an overhead cable was not going to work for the new house, so we needed to come up with an underground solution.

Usually you are supposed to get a telecom surveyor to come out, but the costs for that were too expensive and we figured that if we did all the ducting ourselves, an engineer would likely not object to fitting it. (N.B. little did we know that a few months later, Alan would end up becoming a telecom engineer himself - so it turned out this was all good practice...)     

One advantage of paying out for a surveyor is that Openreach will provide all the ducting materials for nothing, but having carefully worked out exactly what bits we needed (on the back of an envelope, naturally) we calculated that even buying all the ducting ourselves, it would still work out as an 80% saving on the surveying charge.

The easiest and most direct route from the bottom of the pole to the house was via the grass verge alongside the track. The only drawback was that we would have to somehow get the duct through the 'earth' banks that border the property.

The bottom of these banks are built from large boulders so getting through it without heavy machinery was going to be a bit of a challenge - so we decided that might be a good place to start.   

Digging the hole through the bank was really hard work. We managed to extract the large boulders at the bottom and using various implements managed to burrow our way in from one side...

... while simultaneously digging out from the other side. Luckily our two tunnels met in the middle and we were finally able to pass a section of duct all the way through the 2-3m thick bank.

With one section of duct safely installed through the bank, we could get on with digging a trench along the grass verge. It only needed to be 300-400mm deep but there were over 40m to dig and sadly it all needed to be done using only a hand shovel [sigh].

We ran the pull-rope through each section of duct as it was connected. As the name suggests, this will be used to pull the cable through the duct once it has been buried. 

Digging the first part of the trench went reasonably smoothly...

...but the next section proved a lot more difficult as someone had decided to bury piles and piles of bricks right where our trench need to go. Digging these out one by one was slow and a nuisance.

The last major obstacle was the concrete path. We cut a channel through it using an SDS drill and chisel bit. 

 

Once we'd cut a channel through the concrete path, the ducting could be passed through.

 

Finally we reached the bottom of the pole. The pull-rope was tied off at both ends to keep it in position.

The duct was now complete - from the bottom of the pole...

... all the way along the verge...

...then turning through the bank and along the last few metres until it reached the house.

With the trench completed, all we needed to do now was fill it all back in again.





Filling in the trench didn't take too long...

...and even the site inspector joined in. 

 

The trench filled in. Once the grass has grown back, you'd never know it was there.

As luck would have it, our house was provided with fibre to the premises, so we would be going from around 10Mb to 330Mb download speed, virtually overnight. The engineer was happy to send our cable along the duct we provided and everything was installed to the house without issue.

While we were working outside, we thought it was about time we did something about our post box.

 

 The post box outside the old house was looking slightly tired.

We rigged up an old fence post outside the entrance to the new house...

...and made a wooden plinth to allow us to attach our US-style 'mailbox'.

This type of sealed postbox handles the Cornish weather much better than the 'letterbox' style ones, which always seem to leave you with sopping wet letters. Our postman even uses the flag on the side to let us know when our letters have been delivered.

News of the replacement postbox had spread fast and a huge crowd of curious locals soon arrived to see what all the fuss was about.

The visiting throng were thrilled with the spectacle and as you can see, the new postbox received many admiring glances.

Sadly, the visit was only fleeting for word had spread about an exciting new drainpipe down in the village.