January 5, 2026 Christmas Tree Down - Medical Visits - Dishwasher Install - Bedroom Light Repair - Kitchen P-trap Replaced

 My Blog Reflection

When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.

Dalai Lama

January 4, 2026:

Since the day before Christmas I have been dealing with a case of plantar fasciitis in my left foot. I'm doing what I can to address the issue but the "cures" are all over the place. I’m trying to stay off of it as much as possible. I miss not being able to walk with the guys in the morning and hope to get back to that soon.

Once back home from our Lake Tahoe trip, it was time to take down the Christmas Tree, pack up all of the decorations, and store the trains and train board. Another Christmas season was under our belt. The train board is four foot by six foot and sits on six ten-inch long legs. My dad made it when I was about eight years old so it is close to seventy years old. The trains and train board have only been used at Christmas over these many years. I need to make new legs for it but I never think to work on it during the rest of the year. Legs with rollers would make sense as we need to move the board around to decorate the tree sitting on top. 

January 5, 2026:

Today Alexa bought a dishwasher from Marcuzzo Electric here in Perryville. It was the same price as one at Lowes and there was no delivery charge. Her house never had a dishwasher so the kitchen base cabinet has to be modified to accommodate it. We will also need to run electric to it from the electric panel and make a new water connection under the sink. 

January 6, 2026:

After a church meeting this afternoon I worked on the chain saw. When we last used it on the tree in Alexa’s back yard the chain oil passage became blocked. I took it apart today and cleaned everything out. As far as I can tell it is working properly now. We need to make the last two cuts of the trunk to finish that project.

The dishwasher was delivered late this afternoon so tomorrow we will start on cutting out the kitchen cabinet for an install.

January 7, 2026:

Here is a picture of the kitchen cabinets before we started on the modification for the dishwasher. The RED arrow points to where the dishwasher will be installed. The GREEN arrow points to a cutting board pull out at the other end of the cabinets. Alexa will never use this, so to compensate for the loss of two drawers for the dishwasher install, we plan on eliminating the pull out cutting board and make that spot into another drawer.

These cabinets are all homemade out of plywood and pine boards. The base cabinet had a middle shelf and a bottom shelf. Both had to be cut out, as well as the drawer facia. It took two different power saws, and a good amount of time, to make these cuts. Upon cutting out the bottom shelf we found that there was another layer of shelf under the first. Here are two pictures. 

This additional shelf layer was nailed to a box made of 2 x 4s attached to the floor. We could not imagine why this shelf was there. We speculated that at some point in the past the current base cabinet was built over the top of an old cabinet structure. It was a bit of a challenge to get it all sawn out. Here is a picture of the raw dishwasher opening after we thought everything in the way for the dishwasher install had been removed.

Next we cut two boards to enclose the dishwasher, which is not as wide or as tall as the old cabinet area. We had hoped to have enough space beside the dishwasher for a narrow cookie pan cabinet. While there is additional space to the right, most of the area is behind a cabinet setback which was made to clear the window sill nearby. Any cabinet door opening would be far too narrow for any practical use.

Here is a picture of the two boards, top and right that we installed to enclose the dishwasher. The gaps in the wood have been filled with wood filler and they will all be sanded and painted white.

We are going to fill the cavity to the right of the dishwasher with some insulation I had on hand to help with any noise produced.

With all of the shelving out the dishwasher STILL would not slide totally back into the cabinet. What could possible be the problem? The first thing I noticed was a piece of the old baseboard and quarter round sticking out in the corner from a prior cabinet remodel. Here is Alexa cutting it out with the oscillating saw. A slow process.

With the baseboard cut out the dishwasher STILL would not slide all the way in. I looked all around in the cabinet opening for any obstruction. Then it hit me. The six inch board holding up the back of the countertop was hitting the top of the dishwasher. Here is a picture with an arrow pointing to the board. It took forever to cut this board out from one end to the other with the oscillating saw, which is the only saw that would work in there.

At last the dishwasher finally slid back into place as far as it was going to go with the depth of these homemade cabinets, which are a little narrower than modern cabinets. 

At this point we had been hard at it for eight hours and we had had no lunch. We quit for the day. Here is a picture of the wood that we took out of the cabinet. Quite a pile.

Every project needs a supervisor and we had ours. This is Frankie inspecting our work after we quit for the day and got out of the way.

January 8, 2026:

There was no work on the dishwasher project today. I had been notified on Tuesday that I was scheduled for a full body bone scan and a CT scan this morning at 8:00 a.m. in St Louis. Tomorrow afternoon I have to go back to St. Louis for a final visit with the radiology oncology department. This visit will conclude my six-month field study treatment program. It has not been bad but it has not been fun either. The treatment limited my daily activities and delayed winter time spent in Florida this year by at least a month.

January 9, 2026:

We got busy in the morning and ran a new electric line from the subpanel to the dishwasher. We weren't able to finish the electric install because I had my final visit with the radiology department in St. Louis in the early afternoon. The visit yielded great news. The scans taken the day before indicated that there has been no new growth in any of my tumors. This was the best result that could have been expected. A very good day.

January 10, 2026:

Several of us worked at the Hill of Peace Lutheran Church to get the huge cedar Christmas Tree out.  The tree, cut about a month ago, shedded many clumps of Cedar needles on the way out. Getting them all out of the carpet took a while.  

Work on Alexa's dishwasher install will resume on Monday since she is working this weekend.

January 11, 2026:

Alexa worked all weekend so I mostly watched the football playoffs. I did take the face off the cutting board drawer to convert it into a face for a new drawer. I filled the cutting board slot with a board on hand and filled the cracks with wood putty for sanding. 

Getting the cutting board out of the cabinet won’t be as easy as I anticipated. I thought there would be some release of the stop that keeps it from pulling out but if there was I couldn’t find it. We will unscrew everything we can find and hope the cutting board and frame comes out. We will use the wood from the two drawers that were eliminated to make a new drawer.

January 12, 2026:

I planned on continuing with the dishwasher install but Kelly and Alexa went antiquing in Ste. Genevieve instead. I can work on it by myself but Alexa wants to help and learn to do all this. In my shop I worked some more on the new drawer face that would replace the cutting board face.

January 13, 2026:

In the morning we started back on the dishwasher project. I thought the six inch cavity to the left of the dishwasher may amplify the sound the dishwasher makes when running so I had Alexa fill the area with some old fiberglass batts I had in the shop. They were held in place by bowing wooden sticks I had cut and gluing the ends in place.

We then installed a ground fault outlet under the sink. I wanted it under the sink rather than behind the dishwasher so that it would be easily accessible in the future. There wasn't any room for it behind the dishwasher anyway. 

Once the outlet was installed we connected the drain hose to the garbage disposal. All that was left was connecting the hot water line. I disconnected the faucet fitting so I could take this picture to the hardware store to show them the type of "T" fitting I needed to connect the dishwasher.

When working on old plumbing it is rare that I purchase the right plumbing connection my first trip. With the help of the "Ace Hardware Man" I purchased the correct fitting. 

Once everything was connected there were no water leaks. Alexa ran a test load as spelled out in the instructions. Still no leaks under the sink nor under the dishwasher. Alexa then installed the bottom insulation and the kick plate. With that the install was complete. (Mostly). Here is what the dishwasher looks like installed. It sticks out more than it should but that is because these homemade cabinets are not as deep as newer cabinets. 

I was going to lunch with Gary and had a little time before leaving so Alexa and I tore into removing the cutting board and the mechanism supporting it. We found out it was built to withstand an earthquake. In frustration I finally just yanked it out. Once it was out it was clear that much of the space for the new drawer I envisioned was filled solid with wood. Apparently there had been a different cabinet configuration at one time and they just built a newer one over it. The end result is that the new drawer will only be about and inch and a half high. It will be good enough for her knives I guess. Pictures will follow when we get back to that project. 

I went to lunch with Gary eating at "The Pub" in Altenburg. They had an excellent half-pound burger. After enjoying it we took advantage of the beautiful day and drove around for an hour in the Eastern end of the County. Gary showed me the farms of some of his relatives and his Granddad's Farm where he worked each summer as a kid. It was great to learn about all of this history.

While riding around and telling Gary about the protracted dishwasher installation, he advised that under the electrical code we did not need a GFI for the dishwasher outlet under the sink. We have a future project that entails putting in an outlet above the countertop on the left end of the cabinet. When the time comes I will move the GFI to that location so we don't have to buy another. 

After Gary dropped me off back at her house, Alexa advised that the back bedroom light would not work, even with new bulbs installed. The bedroom has two doors (I don't know why) and a switch by each door, ie. two three-way switches. I thought maybe one or both of the switches were bad. I checked them as best I could with my voltmeter and they seemed to be operating correctly. I could not get power at either switch nor at the light. I had exhausted my limited knowledge. I messaged Gary who said he would be over the next morning at 8:00 a.m. to see what he could figure out.

January 15, 2026:

Gary arrived right on time and began diagnosing the problem. The bedroom light and switches were all wired with the old "knob and tube" wiring from when the house was originally built. Most of the house had been rewired but apparently this ceiling light had not. 

Gary found that no power was getting to the first switch, which fed the other switch as well as the light. I thought we would need to pull up the floorboards in the attic to look for electrical connections up there. Before doing that Gary suggested we look downstairs for any wiring issues because power had to originate from down there. Gary quickly spotted two "knob and tube" wires which came down through the wall where one light switch was located. The old wires had pieces cut out of them. Gary was pretty sure this was our problem. When someone eliminated the bulk of the old "knob and tube" wiring to upgrade the house wiring, these wires coming down from the bedroom light switch had been cut when they were still needed for the ceiling light to work. 

Unfortunately they cut the wires off very short where they came down out of the wall. Gary was able to crimp new wires on and connect new wires back to the cut ends about two feet away.  WE HAD LIGHT! Here is a picture of the repair. You can see the blue crimp connectors on both ends of the patch wire.

When the subpanel was installed I tried to label every circuit but one I could not. Once the back bedroom light worked we found that it was on the circuit breaker I couldn't trace earlier. We also found that the back bedroom light, the attic light, the bathroom light, and the front bedroom light were all wired to that circuit breaker. The circuit breaker mystery was solved. It and the new dishwasher circuit were appropriately labeled. 

It was very generous of Gary to devote his time and expertise to this project for Alexa.  In looking at the dishwasher installation he suggested we place a piece of small trim around the three sides of the dishwasher to hide the black gasket so the installation would look more finished. Great idea. We will do that.

January 16, 2026:

The last project for a while was replacing the trap under the kitchen sink which leaks. The 1/ 1/2 inch trap pipe seemed to be cracked because it constantly slowly dripped. I hadn't thought about it but Gary pointed out by the trap dripping it no longer acts as a trap for sewer smell. The metal tailpiece was rusting through so it needed to be replaced as well.

A quick trip to Ace Hardware and we had the new trap and tailpiece we needed. It was an easy install only taking about fifteen minutes. 

Unfortunately, after about an hour water was barely accumulating above the threads where the old black plastic elbow connected to the new p-trap. 

Upon taking the trap back out and looking at the old fitting I noticed that the interior flange was a little rough in one spot. Since the black fitting was glued on, and will be a pain to cut off and replace. I sanded the rough edge smooth and wound Teflon tape around the threads before reconnecting the new p-trap. This should easily stop the very minor leak. If it does not we will another project in the future of cutting the black elbow out and replacing it with a new one. A much bigger project than we had today.

We purchased a piece of trim for around the dishwasher and Alexa painted it. Monday and Tuesday are both doctor appointment days so getting the trim installed may be delayed until Wednesday.