Tips + Tricks

The floor in our garage was a disaster when we purchased our house but with Rust-Oleum’s RockSolid products, we were able to repair and apply a beautiful garage floor coating.

Where is the last place you would want to prance around barefoot in your home? Probably the garage, right? If your garage floor is anything like ours was, it’s just plain gross. It was dirty and there was sawdust everywhere because of all woodworking projects.

It was a beast to clean because we had these huge craters in the middle of the garage due to past foundation work on our home. The large holes collected debris and threatened a sprained ankle. It was a mess.

We spend quite a bit of time in our garage using it as a shop for our DIY projects so we really want to transform the space into a place that is inviting and inspiring and a snazzy garage floor coating was just what we needed to revive our old nasty concrete floor.

Rust-Oleum was nice enough to send over their RockSolid garage floor coating kit for us to try out. After repairing the concrete floor (see ya later crater) and applying the concrete floor coating, we were impressed and happy with the results! If your floor is as bad as ours, it will be time consuming and require labor but the products make the process easy and uncomplicated.

The metallic finish is mesmerizing and worth the work because not only does the garage floor coating make the garage look beautiful it makes it ridiculously easy to keep clean. Now I feel 100% comfortable dancing around on this beautiful floor barefoot.

In this electrical outlet install tutorial, we demonstrate how we added an additional outlet in our garage and installed an electrical outlet inside a drawer to charge tool batteries.

This week we are excited to bring you our first project to kick off our garage makeover, adding electrical outlets. An electrical outlet install might seem like a small project, but having only one outlet in the entire garage/shop is inconvenient.

Currently, our solution for only having one outlet is to run an extension cord from inside the house which allows us to plug in one 15amp tool and a vacuum for dust collection. This is far from an ideal situation so an electrical outlet install was on the top of our to-do list for the garage.

The outlets in this tutorial are ran from the existing outlet but soon we will also be adding outlets from new breakers. Plus, while we are at it, we decided to add an outlet inside a drawer of one of our new cabinets to charge tool batteries so it keeps the counter clutter free.

Important: Use caution when working with exposed wires! Exposed wires can shock you. All tips below are based on our experience and if you use any of the techniques shown below, you are doing so at your own risk.

Installing electrical outlets is oddly satisfying. It is a messy process but once all the faceplates are screwed back on, the results are really nice.

Let us know if you have any questions about our process.

In this tutorial we will show how to shorten string Christmas lights.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation while decorating for Christmas where you need a shorter string of Christmas lights?

Maybe you need to finish a small section on your roof or you would like to add lights to your fireplace mantle but don’t need 30 feet to get the job done.

Today we are sharing how to shorten string Christmas lights to the exact length you need.

Follow the simple steps and the second diagram below and you will be able to shorten string Christmas lights in no time.

Important: Use caution when working with exposed wires! Exposed wires can shock you. Don’t plug in the lights until you have all the exposed wires covered with wire connectors and always use outdoor/waterproof wire connectors if your lights will be outdoors. All tips below are based on our experience and if you use any of the techniques shown below, you are doing so at your own risk.

*** Thanks so much for supporting our small shop – Moon Rock Prints – this holiday season! ***

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Tutorial Video

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Steps

One way to determine how the lights are wired is to completely remove one of the bulbs.

If all or a section of lights turns off than the lights are wired in series. If all the lights remain on then most likely the strand is wired in parallel.

Lights Wired in Series

Most mini Christmas lights and LED Christmas lights are wired as multiple sections of wired in series.

Start by locating both sides of each series section of lights that turn off when a bulb is removed. You should see that the Christmas lights change from having 3 wires to 2 wires then changes back to 3 wires.

The best way to shorten lights wired in series is to remove an entire series section of lights by cutting lights apart where there are only has two wires, with the lights unplugged.

Then, simply cap each of the two cut wires with a wire connector. If the lights go outdoors be sure to use outdoor/waterproof wire connectors.

Risk of removing individual lights from lights wired in series

If your goal is to remove one or two lights off a strand wired in series it is possible but not ideal.

Christmas lights wired in series spread 120 volts coming out of the plug across all the lights.

Each light that is removed increases the voltage to all the remaining bulbs.

As you can see, removing a few bulbs isn’t a huge deal but remove too many and risk burning out all the lights.

Notice as the bulbs are removed and the volts/light increase the lights get brighter

120 volt / 40 bulbs in series = 3 volts/bulb
120 volt / 35 bulbs in series = 3.4 volts/bulb
120 volt / 10 bulbs in series = 12 volts/bulb

How to remove individual lights from lights wired in series

1. With the lights unplugged, cut the two wires that enter the last light in the series strand with wire cutters.

2. Use wire cutters to strip the ends of the two wires cut in the previous step. Twist the two bare wire ends together.

3. After twisting the wires together secure with a wires connector. Then, cut the third wire to match the length of the other two wires and cap it with a wire connector.

Wire diagram for series Christmas lights

This diagram shows how Christmas lights wired in series are wired. There are three different wires.

Each colored line represents a different wire. The blue line connects all the lights together in series and supplies power to the light bulbs.

The yellow and red wires are both connected to the blue line on either side of the light bulbs.

The diagram above shows the CORRECT way to connect the spliced wires. By connecting the wires this way, the lights will turn on when you plug it in.

As you can see the blue wire (the wire connecting the lights) must always be connected to one of the loose wires.

The diagram above shows another possible way to connect the wires. If you connect the wires this way the light bulbs are only connected to one side of the power and they will not turn on.

As you can see in the diagram, the red wire is not connected at all. You must switch the wire coming from the light bulb to connect to the other loose wire.

This diagram shows that if you connect the wires this way it will short circuit and throw the breaker for the outlet.

Don’t attach the two loose wires together. Only one loose wire and the wire coming from the light bulbs should be connected together.

Shortening Christmas lights wired in parallel

The lights are designed so each bulb receives all 120 volts and each bulb has a direct route to power, meaning they can be cut to any length without overpowering and burning out bulbs.

With the lights unplugged cut wires with wire cutters between the bulbs and cap each end with wire connectors.

We hope this helps you adjust the length of your Christmas lights so you can now you hang up you custom length string Christmas lights!

Now that you know how to shorten string Christmas lights, you can fill in any small gaps of lights on your roof or create custom length string lights to decorate with in your home.

Learn how to replace a thermostat and test the air conditioner to make sure the thermostat is broken.

When you live somewhere for several years your home becomes the setting of many stories and memories. If you are like us, sometimes a house even gets a few stories of its own. There are many running jokes between Courtney and I referring to peculiar things about our home.

First there is Walter the friendly ghost who receives AARP magazines and is always leaving the garage door open and the toilet seat up. Then there was Henry, the friendly red bird that peacefully eats bird food outside while telepathically communicating with our cat Jake. And, we must not forget the monster that lives in our laundry room that eats socks. It is still up in the air if the sock monster prefers clean or dirty socks.

We are well aware that each of the previously mentioned stories are mostly fictional but one thing we are sure of is that inevitably the hamsters that turn the big wheel in the air-conditioner always go on strike when the weather turns hot.

Last year, the first week the weather got above 90 degrees we caved and called the repair man when the inside of our house finally reach 85 degrees. After spending a small fortune to replace all the A/C components in the attic, we slept easy all summer in our cool house. But, wouldn’t you know the first weekend it heated up this year the temperature slowly climbed in our house but our A/C would not kick on.

Determined to not spend a fortune again this year, I set out to figure out how to fix it myself. (spoiler alert) After a late night we were able to fix the A/C problem ourselves because luckily it was due to the thermostat and not the air conditioner itself. Below is how we tested our thermostat and compressor to determine which one was causing the air conditioning system to fail.

How to Replace a Thermostat Video

In the video below I will show how to test to see if it is in fact the thermostat that is not working and then the steps to replacing a thermostat.

We chose to replace our thermostat with a Honeywell WiFi thermostat because this will allow us to control the thermostat from anywhere and eventually incorporate it into a smart home system. Plus, this is the least expensive smart thermostat costing only $87.99.

1. Test the Thermostat

The first thing we did was change the batteries to double check that the batteries weren’t the issue. After changing the batteries we turned the temperature down to see if the compressor would turn on but nothing happened.

Once we tried the cool mode, we flipped the switch on the thermostat to heat and turned the temperature up. Once on heat mode, the heat kicked on. Because the thermostat was able to turn on the heat, we couldn’t be confident that the thermostat was broken. There was a chance that something was wrong with the compressor.

The next step was to check if the A/C could be hardwired on, bypassing the thermostat. If hard-wiring the A/C on worked we would know the thermostat needs to be replaced.

2. Test the Compressor

Once the thermostat is removed from the wall there should be several colored wires exposed.

Red Wire: Power (24 volt)
White Wire: Heater
Yellow Wire: Compressor
Green Wire: Fan

By using a wire to connect the red wire to the yellow wire the compressor should turn on. If the compressor does not turn on than the problem is the compressor not the thermostat. In our case the compressor did turn on, indicating that the thermostat was not working.

(The red wire should only be 24 volts but it can still create a small shock)

3. Turn Off Breaker

Although the 24 volt power line doesn’t pose any huge safety concerns, it is good practice to always turn the breaker off before disconnecting any wires. The two breakers to turn off are labeled A/C and furnace in our house.

4. Check the Wires

After installing the new thermostat back plate we realized the new Honeywell WiFi thermostat needs a 5th wire, the “C” wire. In hindsight this is a good thing to check when purchasing a new thermostat although it is getting harder to find thermostats that don’t need a “C” wire.

Luckily, we were able to locate the 5th wire. It was snipped off because it was not needed for the old thermostat. We were able to pull the the wire out from inside the wall and strip the wire making it usable.

5. Hook Up the Thermostat

Each color wire connects to the screw terminal with the matching initial.
Green Wire to G
White wire to W
Red Wire to R
Yellow Wire to Y

With all the wires connected, we popped on the front of the thermostat and turned the breakers back on. The nice thing about replacing the thermostat with a “C” wire thermostat is there are no batteries required.

We have our fingers crossed that this is the extent of our Spring air conditioner problems. At least next year the troubleshooting will be easier because there is only one component left in our air conditioning system that has not been replaced.