Some people have seen these pictures ad nauseum, so I apologize, but I am a big supporter of both honoring the historic fabric of the structure while furnishing the house for your own aesthetic, for comfort, for whatever. My apt is 1838 so most of the units never had any kind of ceiling fixture at all, and the first floors at some point had a chandelier mounted at the medallion. Only the Gentleman's Chest and the Japanned cabinet on stretchers would be vaguely "period" in this room, all the rest is modern. (The wing chair is the wrong period, too). But when I bought this place I actually emphasized the 1838 by stripping anything off the perimeter that wasn't period. In the hall I did put a fixture that was at least "more" period appropriate, although modern fixture would be okay too. The public hallways mostly have fixtures like this: And I think something like this could work in your LR if you did not want another large drum shade. I would consider putting the current LR fixture in place of the small bell at the vestibule door, if you don't store it away. Personally I like the tension between historic elements attached to the house vs modern contents.

I expect you'll be able to re-use the visible parts, perhaps even including the botton covers. Keeping old materials is always a good thing, but if you need to replace the "guts" of the switches with modern equipment, don't hesitate. There's absolutely no need to have un-safe wiring or switches just for historical accuracy. Unless you also want to have only hand-drawn four-man fire pumpers used to extinguish any fires. Leather fire buckets can also still be purchased at antique stores....... (just kidding!) Hope the appraisal comes in on the right side of the money and you get your house! Molly~

1.Get a not contact votage tester. You just place it beside the wire and it beeps for power. Leave the groudn. You don't have any place to connect it. You should install a box to mount the fixture. 2. The new fixture probably has a warning to use it only on 90ºC wiring. If it does you should not use it. The wiring is not 90ºC. 3. You should not be using CFL on a dimmer. They are not designed for that. 4. It is the dimmer. They are not meant for CFL bulbs.

So ye' can tell K&T wiring by the "clicks" of the light switches...? That's one funny plumber. Your wiring's old, no question. Heck, your house is old. You knew that going in, so quit griping about the realtor, will ye'. OK, so you can't afford a whole-house re-do just now, and welcome to the club. It's a big club. From where I sit, I can't say if your electrican's price is reasonable or not because I ain't looking at the place, but I will say this: when you can't do everything, you gotta' prioritize, and some of your needs will be more immediate than others. Again, that's a facile thing to say - liabilities being what they are, many a contractor won't even touch a K&T house without a bottom-up re-do. Fool that I am, I don't work that way. I inspect, carefully record my findings, and make recommendations based upon what illegal/outmoded conditions present an immediate hazard, versus others which are less scary. Please understand one important point. Electrically, your house ain't divided into floors, it's divided into branch circuits. That's branch, as in tree-branch, or branches of a stream, and it's a d*mn fine choice of words. The branch circuits come together at one place, your service panel (aka breaker-panel), and branch out from there. What floor they are on is far less important than how they get from place to place inside your walls (or upside the out-door walls) to where they need to be. Lot going on here, and as I said, I ain't looking at it. My point is this: in all but the most extreme cases, there's rarely a need to yank an entire system out and shoot it, all at one time.