Well, it’s never too late to add a wire really, but sometimes it’s not worth the effort or deconstruction in order to add it after everything is already in place. But, in this instance, I was lucky.
When I originally made the cellar unit with working doors, they were to hold any flickering fireplace unit I might add to the parlor at a later date. Now, I thought, it would be a great place to hide the battery switch for the light I needed on the front porch. After consulting my photos of the basement supports and lighting configuration in an earlier post, I saw that it was workable. I cut a hole in the foundation behind the stairs to access the basement. ;]
I had already planned to keep the front steps removable since I might want to change the outer décor from time to time. Having a hard-wired light bulb sticking out of the stone steps isn’t ideal for that reason. Initially, I thought I would just hide the battery and its on/off switch in a crawlspace hole behind the stairs, but then I would have to remove the steps every time I wanted to turn the light on and off. The cellar is a much better solution.
Here is the path of the wire and the thin gap I needed to aim for.
A hole drilled in the back of the cellar provided access to the adjacent compartment.
I used a bit of plastic tubing angled up toward the basement ceiling and fed a length of floral wire through it. I used floral wire since it is more rigid than electrical wire and therefore moves more easily through the tube.
After a little fishing (and a little swearing), it broke through the gap. I tied the end of the floral lead wire to electrical wire and started the feed through the tube.
Now to retrieve the floral lead wire from inside the crawlspace.
Yes, my hand fits in a hole 2 3/4″ wide x 1 1/2″ high. :D I first lined the hole with masking tape to save myself from splinters, though.
And, there it is! Hooray!
I pulled the floral wire until the electrical wire came through the crawlspace hole.
I removed the floral lead wire from the front end and the tube from the cellar end, leaving the electrical wire ready to use.
What’s the wire for? You can probably guess…but Blake and Lyssa aren’t allowed to say. :D
