Power!

One of the many mistakes I had to correct in the kitchen was the electric line for the stove. The last guy used a nice beefy wire but for some reason had it come in through the floor and it was then screwed directly to the back of the stove. The funny thing there is that the beefy wire is aluminum and it said in big print all over the back of the stove not to use aluminum wire, that a copper connection had to be made and the wires spliced.

Simple enough solution, the back wall had cracked and crumbled (I didn't make that hole) so all I had to do was make a small hole in the baseplate of the wall (the 2x4 that goes along the floor that the vertical wall joists are nailed to) to fit the wire in and cover it with a protective metal plate (so that you can't nail or screw into the wire). The second plate is just there to hold the broken pieces of lath together for the new plaster.



Here you can see the fresh plaster I applied. I used the mesh tape along the cracks that covered the entire length of the wall and put some down inside the hole as well. Then I mixed up a batch of 90 minute joint compound and filled the hole and covered the tape (and thus the cracks).



Once the plaster dried I sanded it smooth with the old wall, primed and painted. I would have done a second layer of spackle to really smooth out the area where the hole was (I was a little short with my first batch) but this will be behind the new stove so I went for the speedier solution. It looks fine...100% better than it did with the cracked crumbling wall that had probably been that way for 35 years since the kitchen was first put in.


Next...we get rid of this hideous floor!