2 sheets short

While the 1/4 inch project went much slower than I expected, the results are looking good. With several roof lines, stud spacings and rooms joining one another, the project has taken a while. And now I am 2 sheets short for the bedroom portion. So another trip to visit a friend of mine and we will be ready to tape by wednesday.

Drywall-ing really sucks. Thanks to some knuckleheads in the 40's-90's who believed that multiple layers of wallpaper might just cure world hunger and the cuban embargo, we have spent the past week working on ceilings and walls. 1/2 on the ceiling 1/4 on the walls. And we have not even gotten to the messy mud and sand part....it's coming ( and I know that some of ya'll are waiting on pictures of me covered in that nasty dust ) But all and all it looks like it will turn out better than what we had hoped for. When will it be done? hmmmm 2.5 months I hope.

Why don't our plumbers / electricans ever leave before 10?

10:30 pm and Mark is still working upstairs on the shower rough in. Of course he didn't get here until 8:30ish and he worked a full day as a commercial plumber, but what in the world? Since last Feb our house has been a buzz of activity. I believe that it all started last year with removing one little floor tile in the kitchen. And the ball just kept on rolling.

The bathroom tile arrived yesterday. 500lbs of it. Small hex for the floor of the bathroom and 2" white squares for the shower stall and rim of the shower (well at least I think that is the plan) But that won't be todays project at all.

Todays project will be 1/4 inch drywall. Yep the time has come to attempt to cover our old wallpapered walls with 1/4 panels of new drywall. Our goal is to make the walls smoother than what they are right now. That's our goal. But this is our first attempt at a full room of board and mud. I guess we'll see how it goes.

Ceiling --- Check! Electrical rough in----CHECK!

10:30 pm - Adam / Electrician finishes up and leaves

So now all of the electrical is 'roughed' in and the walls are ready to be covered with a new layer of wallboard. AWESOME! It's been over a year now since Adam finished the downstairs electrical, and it just feels like some closure has begun for one of our many tasks. Nahhhh it will be at least a couple more months before we are DONE done.

10:15 - Final piece of the new 1/2" drywall goes up on the Ceiling!

I was able to get the entire ceiling done today after work BY MYSELF! How you ask? Am I some super human? Some gigantic myth of a man who has 5 arms? NOPE! The panel lift that I rented from my friends at United Rentals allowed me to hoist the sheets in to place with no issues what so ever. It really wasn't that bad. Now comes the fun part, those pesky little angles!

Late start...not so much on progress-

sleep in but at the dump by 8 am. Unload-return home-reload-dump again by 9. We really didn't have too much to do to prepare for Adam, but we found enough to keep us busy. Thank goodness cause the boy slept in until something like NOON! Good for him though. A mid-20's business owner who works his butt off. But noon was a little later of a start than I had planned on. Oh well, what are you going to do or say when you have a friend doing the work? Not much. But take a look at that freakin light! YEAH!

All of the cans are in (5 in total for the bedroom, 2 in the shower) and all of the circuits are fun for the outlets, switches, closet lights and I think he may have even wired in an elevator back in the dark corner of the attic, he was back there for a long time.

So while Adam and I worked on getting all of the electric done, sandy was hard at work removing trim, drywall, wall paper, and glue. She found one wall that had some really nice plaster on it. Too bad they didn't do that in every room, but hey, she's really proud of this wall and she made it look really nice!

So we didn't get to putting the drywall onto the ceiling, 10 hours of work on a sunday was enough. Maybe tomorrow we can get after it?

Down to the wood!

Thursday I made the trip in the rain (it was rain, but most people from this part of NC called it wintry mix and were realllllly freaked out) to go get the 1/2 drywall for our upstairs remodel. I have a good friend in the drywall supply business and he was nice enought to hook me up at cost! So yeah I drove 150 miles for drywall supplies.

So there we were this morning wondering how and what we were going to do. Our first plan was to install 1/2 drywall over the existing. WHY? Because the ancient people once loved wallpaper and thought that it might be a great idea to install millions and millions of layers of it. We were all set to do it and then I just started pulling down the old sheetrock. All of it from the ceiling, and all of the old insulation that was above it. And why? Well once i pulled down a small piece we realized that it would be much easier to install our new stuff if we got down to the wood. So we did. And we made 5 trips to the dump in one day ( Thats 125 miles if you are keeping track)

So what are we into tomorrow? Well ADAM is coming over to install the can lights, and run all of the new electric for the bathroom and bedroom. Hopefully he gets it kicking early and we get to hang the drywall on the ceiling. Why am I hoping to hang drywall? Someone help me!

Progress made.....

We made a little bit of progress today. After we spent about 2 hours talking with Dave (bathroom cabinet maker) we got back to the crib to frame out the the rest of the bedroom wall. Along with framing it out, came hanging the door. The door came from one of the old bedroom walls that we took down to open things up. doors aren't so easy, but they aren't hard....they just require some thought.

After the wall we finished up framing the duct work out. When we had the AC put in back in what...march we ran into an issue with getting the duct up to the other rooms. It pops out of one wall and shoots up into the attic. That "shoot-out" is what we had to frame in so that we can hide it with some drywall, paint, and old VW bug...something other than ductwork.

And finally, sandy tried her hand at rolling on watered-down joint compoun to the walls. WHY? well...here goes. After you remove 100 layers of wall paper off of 1940's drywall the paper comes off with it. SO.....shelac. Cadillac, scooby snak, shalac! We applied one coat of shelac to the walls after the wallpaper came down so that we could apply the skimcoat. Not so sure if it worked or not, but it's worth a shot right?

10 things I am enjoying-

1. Houseblogs.Net and my morning coffee
2. DW718 slide compound mitersaw
3. Concrete countertops I made myself
4. Inmotion I-Pod speaker system my wife gave me for christmas
5. My dog Kelsey who will be 7 this Feb.
6. Crocs. How did anyone live with out them? It's like flip-flops meets my Berks....
7. Checking the snow report at Mtbaker.us or Skicrystal.com and knowing Josh is gettin after it!
8. Measuring twice and making it fit.
9. Putting on the work gloves, grabbing my hammer, and putting more dents in my pry-bar.
10. Calling my dad on the phone, knowing that he won't be going in the coal mines again.

And life goes on.....
The weather in Raleigh NC is just horrible. Honestly I am hating it. 74 and sunny in the first week of January? I hate it.

What has happened in the past couple of weeks? - New bathroom subfloor is in and leveled. The new shower is framed. The new bedroom wall is framed and.....well that is just about it. I wish that I had more to report on...oh wait I did order a sample of this TILE off of ebay.

Maybe I will have more by the end of the day tomorrow?