Discovered that painter's tape is not just for painting after using it to label every wire before replacing a light fixture in our 1920s house

I spent a full Saturday tracing unlabeled knob-and-tube wiring in the attic before I tried flagging each wire with a small piece of tape and a sharpie, and it saved me three hours of guessing which black wire went where, has anyone else found a weird second use for a basic tool like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

drew_hart41mo ago

Used a spaghetti noodle to check oil dipstick depth once.

foster.jordan1mo ago

Lol gotta get creative when you're in a pinch.

king.val1mo ago

My 1988 F150 was low on oil once and I used a piece of dry spaghetti from the pantry to check the dipstick on the side of the road. Foster.jordan is right, you have to get creative when you are stuck with no proper tools around. The noodle held up fine, but I learned to keep a real rag and a spare dipstick in the glove box after that.