One thing that I’ve decided in my big spring clean of Miranda is that while my mini wet/dry shop vac serves its purpose really well, it’s a pain to use for daily cleaning because it means I have to get on my hands and knees to vacuum the edges of the floor after I sweep. I am glad to have it for sucking up cat litter and that will continue to be its job. But I need another option for the rest of the rig.

I did some research and decided that a stick vac that converts to a hand vac would be the most useful in a tiny home with no carpet, as well as being easy to store.

I’ve been checking the Canadian Tire flier for a few weeks and the vacuums finally went on sale this week! I decided on a Dirt Devil model for $29. Dirt Devil is barely a step up from Shark, but I figured that it would hold up long enough for me to get my money’s worth.

The Dirt Devil model was available in black and in blue. I cracked open one of the boxes and knew immediately that I wasn’t going to waste $30 on that piece of junk; the plastic just looked really cheap. The next model up was a Dyson, on sale for $119. Dyson makes a great vacuum, but it’s overkill for me. So I decided to wait and headed out of the store when I noticed that there was a box way way in the back of the shelf next to the Dirt Devil model. I wrestled it out and discovered a Bissell stick vac.

I am thrilled with my Bissell little green machine, so I looked for a price tag and let out a mental YAY when I saw that it was the same price as the Dirt Devil!

So I was happy to bring home this blue BISSELL 3106A Featherweight Lightweight Vacuum, also called a ‘magic vac’.

It comes in three parts: the beater bar assembly, the hand vac, and the handle. It assembles easily and has a removable dust cup (no bag). I like things that I can use a minute after I take it out of the box without having to refer to the instruction manual. 🙂 I immediately tested it out and appreciated having a lightweight hand vac that can suck dirt along the edges of the floor without my being bent over. It sucks well on bare floor and only uses 1.2 amps, which means that I will be able to use it when boondocking.

I’m not sure that I would recommend it for folks with carpet because it didn’t do a great job on the carpet in The Apartment, but the carpeting in here is really weird and attracts fuzz like nobody’s business. The Bissell did do a great job on the rug that I put down over the main part of the living area so it might be fine on some types of carpets.

As is typical when embarking on a project about which I know little, I’m very behind on my electrical timeline. But I am making process! I finally got the first of the two new outlets installed.

Disclaimer: I am not an electrician. All of this applies to my own rig using advice from a trusted electrician. I am not responsible if you use any information from this post and damage your RV!

There were a couple of problems with the work I did last time. Croft told me that I had way too much bare wire and that I should only expose as much as I need to wrap around the screws. So I rewired the outlet like so:

I did two wraps around the screws, so the ends are bits that just didn’t fit and were too small to be snipped away

He also informed me that I needed a box to protect the outlet. Eep! No stock boxes exist that would fit the height profile of the cabinet. So I made my own out of a stiff plastic tub that I screwed into the cabinet. Never one to be too cautious, I then taped around it to make sure that everything is secure:

Hey, it looks like an outlet!

The new outlet actually feels more secure than the old one. I haven’t tested it yet with the power on, but when I tried to plug something into it, the outlet didn’t move. The old one used to push up into the cabinet a little.

Now, the other outlet was a little more finicky and by the time I figured out how to use the wall-mount case, I was beyond frustrated. So I’ll come back to it, and the 12V outlet, tomorrow.

This morning, I finally made inroads to adding a new 120V outlet in my study after getting some instructions from Croft last night.

Disclaimer: I am not an electrician. All of this applies to my own rig using advice from a trusted electrician. I am not responsible if you use any information from this post and damage your RV!

Yesterday afternoon, I started on the prep. I emptied out a couple of my upper cabinets, then pried up the bottom from inside. This is smart design; instead of running wires inside the walls, a lot of my wiring, both 120V and 12V, is run inside the base of the cabinets.

As a reminder this is the outlet from which I wanted the new outlet:

As you can probably imagine, I’m tried of having that cord run across the room!

After prying up the bottom, I was able to access the existing outlet. It had a plastic casing:

Here are the instructions for opening up the casing:

That says that you have to depress all four buttons. Who designs these things?! I heard a couple of things crack as I pushed each button in and jimmied it so it would stay depressed.

The wiring was unlike anything I’d seen before:

This stumped me. I had no idea how to add the new wiring to this type of outlet. So I emailed Croft. Thankfully, he was online!

He explained that it is not possible to add another outlet from this type of outlet.  I would therefore have to either put in a new outlet designed to power an extra one or redo the wiring for this one. Here’s a graphic I made explaining that second option to make sure that I understood Croft’s instructions (no laughing!):

Croft said that installing a new outlet was the better choice. Marrettes and electrical tape do hold, but the vibrations in an RV still make this a less stable option. Since outlets and face plates are cheap, I decided to go with the safer option.

So that’s where I was this morning. I trotted over to the home store to pick up a new outlet and, since I’m gaining more confidence in electrical matters and have other projects planned, a wire stripper and an electrical tester. I was very pleased to win 10% off my purchases when I got to the till.

The first thing I had to do today was route the new wiring. I decided that I wanted it to drop down alongside the window inside the valance so that the wiring would look neat. I had to try a number of increasingly huge drill bits before I got to one that made a big enough hole!

I plugged the drill into an extension cord running to the other outlet in the room, by the way, and once the holes were drilled, I cut the power.

Here’s the new wiring coming down from inside the valance (and a peek at the new green!):

I bought a cable raceway that will enclose the wiring and stick to the wall that is paintable. So once the wiring is done, it will be very neat and practically invisible.

Here’s the horizontal hole I had to drill between the two interior sections:

That done, it was time to strip some wires:

That wasn’t enough exposed wiring and I ended up with this:

Adding the wires to the new outlet was easy as everything is clearly labeled:

I’m not 100% sure about my wiring job, though, because of the distance one of the bare wires had to travel, so I sent a picture off to Croft and will wait for his approval before I close up the project. That said, I did turn the power back on and plug in the tester:

It’s upside down, but it’s clear that everything is good since the last two lights are lit up!

Be careful how you grab a hot outlet that isn’t mounted yet. My teeth are still rattling. 😉

I should have this project wrapped up tomorrow, after which point I will be adding a new 12V outlet! I’m now off to look at RVs with Jody and then tuck into a Gary supper. 🙂

This is what my study looked like last night. *sniff, sniff*

I don’t like white! I miss my green! Waaaaaaaaaah!!!!!

But don’t cry for me, blogosphere! I put on coat of this lovely shade this morning:

This fresh green is much closer to the vision I had for the rig, that it would be light and feminine even though I do prefer darker colours. I will have a better idea after the first coat dries of whether or not I love it, but I definitely like it and am not having any regrets!

I bought a full gallon of paint, remembering that a quart barely got a coat on last time, but this must be better paint because I’ve hardly made a dent. No matter, I think it’ll take four coats to really give good coverage over the old paint. It’s great painting weather and I’ll be able to put the second coat on tonight.

Once the green is on, I will still have a bit more painting to do… I also desperately need to get over my fear of screwing up electrical work so I can a) move my 120V outlet to a more sensible location and b) move my inverter into the study.