No wife. Sleep where I like. They say that I snore. Doesn't bother me. Last time I slept on a couch (a quite comfortable one)... was when son and I overnighted at daughter's place, in a smallish apartment in a rather big, expensive city last year. Taigen, Don't apologize for what you do, please - you arrange your life in ways that suit you, so, as long as you don't cramp the style of others, or be detrimental in society, (or cause the security crowd to get excited) ... what's to apologize for? fly on a wall, Hey, how be you just fly away, huh? Choose to never occupy a couch till you draw your dying breath, if that suits you ... ... but if I want to occupy one, whether here or at daughter's, or wherever ... how does that inconvenience you? Sue used to say that I could sleep any time and any place. Clear conscience, maybe? pattico, What kind of contamination does a few hours of a human body lying on a couch inflict on it, anyway, can you tell me? Most folks sleep on a bed thousands of times without causing it any appreciable detriment ... don't they? ________________ Sue and I had a couch/pull-out bed in our living room in Iri City, Korea - where three of the agriculturalist's family's four girls had slept when they lived with us for a few months just after our marriage (but we didn't have the couch, then). We arranged two of the girls' beds into bunk beds. I'd slept on the couch-bed a few times when Sue or I were ill, and it was quite comfortable ... I think that I'd have been content to have slept on it for an extended period. We'd bought it from some Southern Presbyterian (i.e. Presbyterian U.S.) missionaries in a city about 12 miles away. Bruce was born, of necessity by Caesarean section, in a hospital that they ran over there, so it was fortunate that good quality medical service was available: if not, Sue, whose birth canal was way too narrow, and the little one that came to be called Bruce, would both have died. When Sue's Mom, a teacher in Des Moines, came to visit in '62, a year before our return on furlough, we situated her in the couch/pull-out bed in the living room. On the first morning, when she came out to breakfast I don't remember there being much discussion about the comfort of the couch but she was wondering what on earth had been going on - scurrying about above the ceiling for a substanial part of the night. Oh, that was just the rats having a game of football (or was it baseball?). Poor Mom-in-law was somewhat mortified. But she did summon up courage to stay there, nights, during the rest of her stay - of about 3 weeks?? Didn't have a heck of a lot of choice, apart from giving her our bed, for there was room for both Sue and me on the couch/bed ... though we might have been able to have arranged for a bed for her at the two women missionaries' house across town, or at the agriculturalist's house, but that would have been a bit improbable, as Sue and Irene weren't the best of friends, following their sojourn at our place just after their arrival and our marriage, before their newly being-built house was ready. The Koreans thought that Sue's Mom, probably a bit shy of 60 at the time, must have been Sue's sister, she looked so well preserved, for many Korean women in those days looked pretty old and worn, at that age. When my same-year-arrived, first in 17 years(1) colleague had renovated the house after the mission purchased our little demonstration farm, he'd installed some lowered ceilings of veneer panelboard in some of the rooms. Once in recent years after Bruce and I had overnighted at the agriculturalist's home in Alberta, when we came away, he said that they were nice people. I agreed that they were really fine people, and that, as he knew, his Mom was, too ... but that they hadn't got along too well after being confined for those few months in the same small Japanese-style house, with the sliding, paper-covered doors, just after their arrival in that strange country. I've felt sad about that - but there wasn't much alternative. If I remember correctly, I think that I may have suggested that perhaps Sue go to Seoul to go to language school for a while ... at which she sort of bristled, saying that she hadn't come this far to get married ... and then run off to a distant city to go to language school. Maybe it would have been better if she had! What this has to do with sleeping on a couch ... ... is more than I know! Interesting, isn't it, the chain of memories that a simple little reference-trigger can set in motion in our minds? Hope you all enjoy a week with some challenge, adventure and experiences interesting enough to be recorded in your journal in it. ole joyful 1. During that 17 year period the world had suffered under World War II, and the much smaller Korea "Police Action" - but no less devastating for the people involved for three years. Some missionaries of our liberal Protestant church had gone to Korea after World War II, before the Korean War, but they had not returned after the Korean War. The guy who renovated the house and I were appointed just as the war was winding down, the first two new arrivals in that 17 year period among those eight resident at that time. o j

It is updating an old idea from the Victorian era. They had screened in sleeping porches, and the bed could be pushed out of the interior room to the outer screened porch. Those Victorians were health nuts who believed in the power of fresh air. When I was in high school, I visited the summer house of my best friend, and that is the kind of bed we slept on. It could be pushed inside when rain was blowing, but when it was hot as blazes in the summer, the porch always had a great sea breeze blowing, and no mosquitos. I've seen the fold down Murphy beds stored in an entertainment center sized piece of furniture. I've also seen (in an old Irish stone cottage) the bed stored in a cabinet which was a twin size, placed the long way on the wall, about the height of chair railing, with a nice shelf above it. These days, having the bed long ways lifted against the wall, with 16 inch thick mattresses, you could put a hanging closet above, or other storage, and the bed would be really out of the way except when being slept in. Hydraulic lifts like car hatch openers/closers might make it easier to deal with if you are physically challenged.

"The fixture itself is a fan/light combo where both light and fan turned on at the same time. Is it possible someone rewired the same fixture intentionally (I don't know why though) and turned it from a light-OR-fan to a light-AND-fan? I dunno, maybe they figured they never used one without the other and got tired of turning on both? Would that make more sense?" Ah hah! Yes, I'd say it is all but certain now. The light/fan functions were once separately switched and then someone decided to tie them together on one switch. That means "Plan A" because "Plan B" was based on the (now debunked) assumption that there's only one remaining function in that fan! [Not to complicate things just when we're drawing down to some final conclusions, but it also means you have available a "Plan C", which would be to use a new dual switch and return to the original design, with fan and light controlled by their own switches. Arguably, that might save some energy if the fan is sometimes left running when the light isn't needed or vice-versa. But I'm not pushing that one way or the other; it's altogether your choice!] "I will try as you suggest (requires a hardware store run) but I'd like to understand it better first. What are the fat white wires? Am I right in guessing the dark rubber conduit probably goes to the fixture and the silvery ones are household supply? Ya know, when I looked at the pic with the white wires, I didn't quite understand it either. It looks to me like they are neutrals, but I assumed you'd just chosen to omit some of details, like how the neutrals are wirenutted to each other in the box. One of the missing details about the fan/light is that we never did figure out the source of the neutral for that fixture. With 120V wiring, any light, fan or other outlet needs a hot feed and a neutral to work. These days, most electricians would wire that fan/light combo by running a three-wire cable from the switch to the fan (e.g., black for the switched hot light feed, red for the switched hot fan feed and white for the neutral). My guess is that whoever wired your light/fan didn't have 3-wire cable (or didn't understand how to use it) and so s/he put the two switch legs in one cable and ran the neutral in the other. The fact that both of those cables have rubber sheathing tends to confirm that those were part of the same "project". Why, exactly, there appear to be two white neutrals heading "north" is anyone's guess. It's rather bizzare, actually. Not that it matters much, but I think what you have there are cables (not conduit); conduit is like a pipe with individual wires running through it. If, as I suspect, it's cable, not conduit, the rubber sheathing could indicate that it is submersible pump cable or motor wire or something like that. Very possibly, it was just some scrap wire that someone happened to have laying around. Another possibility is, gulp!, that's a cut-up heavy duty extension cord! I dunno, but it isn't anything "standard" I'd expect to see in a bathroom wired in the 60s (or now either, for that matter!). [Not that I doubt you, but I just gotta ask it again: Are there really two white wires in the same two-wire cable???] The "silvery woven" cables appear to be early 60s vintage "Romex" (a brand name, actually, but often used generically). 1967 was right about the point in time when the woven sheathing was phased out in favor of the plastic-sheathed NM-B that we see today in new wiring. Whatever the ancestry or breed of that rubber-covered wire is, the way I would expect it to have been wired is this: three white (or maybe grey by now) neutrals tied together--one from the feed in the lower left, one to the circuit continuation in the lower right and one to the rubber cable in the upper right. Because a cable with two white wires is quite strange, I'd expect to find, on close examination, a black wire in that cable that's been clipped off and not used. As you've presented it in your drawing though, it's a head scratcher alright. It could be that the neutral runs on one wire to the fan and then back to the circuit continuation but, again, that'd be beyond strange, IMHO. This particular box was apparently ungrounded. The ground wires were twisted together but left loose in the box. All the other boxes I've opened up so far have had the grounding wires twisted together and looped into a tab-like projection on the box (metal), and not on the switches or receptacles. Was this acceptable practice in the past and not now? I was expecting this project to be a simple, straightforward direct replacement project. Geesh. Geesh is right! Nothing short of cucumbers grows faster than a home wiring project. Yes, times have really changed when it comes to grounding. Cables with ground wires included began to appear during the 50s and, frankly, I think a lot of electricians had no idea what to do with them! So they twisted them together and sometimes attached them to boxes, etc. :-) Keep in mind that most receptacles then accommodated only two-prong plugs and switches had no grounding terminals. A lot changed during the 60s, as three-prong outlets became standard by the end of the decade and more and more equipment had separate grounding connections. And the good news is this: Few changes in wiring requirements reduced the number of serious house fires more than the advent of comprehensive grounding systems. And the other good news is: Your house wiring includes equipment ground wires. Whenever you have the opportunity to improve something, put them to use! And, especially, whenever you're putting in a device that has a green grounding terminal, take the time to connect it to ground. (Also, check the connections on the old ground wires to make sure they're sound. Once upon a time, just twisting them together was a normal practice. Modern code requires a mechanical connector such as a wire nut or a crimped sleeve. "I really need to pick up a wiring book. Can you recommend one? I heard that one which was previously highly recommended (and I was going to pick up) is on recall now though. Yeah, that recall caused quite a flap. I'm sorry I don't have a good recommendation on the title of a basic book on the top of my head. Hopefully, someone else will pop in with one.

What's that "LEAP OF FAITH" I see mentioned? Winter Sowing is more than an adaptable and easy means to produce a limitless amount of seedlings at a penny-pinching cost, it is ALSO a capable means of producing a more positive personal outlook. I am not trained as a psychologist but just from a layman's observation of reading the forum posts and my own emails I can say positively that Winter Sowing has shown to have an extremely beneficial effect upon mental health. Gardeners who previously felt trapped inside their homes during Winter and shut down from their outdoor connection are going outside into the fresh air on a daily basis and are staying connected with the soil and the natural environment. They're getting vitamin D and all the beneficial rays that keep our spirits up helping to prevent or lessen winter depression. Being creative by choosing seeds and making the little mini-greenhouses from recyclables is soothing. Sowing seeds at the sink is similar on a subliminal level to making mudpies when we were young....it's comfort food for the soul. Bringing seeds to life through our nurturing satisfies the parent in us. It's that reward for "keeping the faith" of seeing the emergence of green seedlings that is so stimulating to our minds and hearts. Faith rewarded feels incredibly good and inspires us to efforts that also produce similar feelings....it inspires (in an almost addictive manner) continued creativity and success. Trudi Davidoff