Bloody Damned Wiring!

So I've tackled the job I probably most-dreaded... Relocating some crazy wiring.

Our prior owner had a half-wall built across the family room, with a column up to the ceiling. That column housed 4 light switches (all 3-way) and two outlets in 3 different boxes. I don't have a full 'before' picture, but after removal of the half-wall & column you can see the wires hanging down from the middle of the ceiling to the switch boxes here:

That's 9 (Nine!) Strands of 12-gauge NM 3-conductor (plus ground = 4) wiring. 36 strands of wire... and of course, with all the three-way switches, you've got crazy wiring setup with two wires -and- a common wire between each pair of switches.

So you just cut a couple holes, snake them over to the wall, and then snake them down, right? Slap in a new switch box, wire everything up, break for lunch... RIGHT???

Not right.

First of all, there wasn't enough wire to reach the wall. So the first order of the day was to put in a junction box and attach (snip, strip, twist, cap, tape) each of those 36 wires to a new longer wire.

But then you just snake those new wires, right?

Nope.

The sheer bulk of that many wires would make that tough. But then throw in a builder who for some unknown reason decided not to attach the drywall ceiling to the rafters, but use firring strips across the rafters and nail it to that instead. Suffice it to say, trying to snake 9 very stiff 4-wire cables of 12-gauge copper through the gaps between rafter and firring strip... Didn't happen.

So I ended up having to open up a path across the entire ceiling and down the entire wall to the new switch location.

THEN I had to attach (snip, strip, twist, cap or screw, tape) each of the NEW 36 wires.

Twelve hours later...  all's well that ends well, I suppose.

The plywood strip is just there to keep dust and bits from falling until I can finish the patch-up job...