Master Suite Progress

We have been working on what I will grandly call "the master suite". All the demolition is done: walls are out, doors are gone, etc., etc. We got all the wall cracks sealed with caulk or foam and we've replaced all five windows.

Those changes alone have made the upstairs and the living room on the main floor (which used to receive all the cold air from upstairs) incredibly more livable this winter. And I mean that literally--it is hard to believe how much difference it has made.

Crazy to think that one board (the sheathing) is better at keeping out the cold without an interior wall and the insulation that was there just because it was finally sealed to keep out the drafts.

Troy has also roughed in the doorways for the bathroom/bedroom, bathroom/closet and bedroom/hallway. He has finished the interior framing of the exterior walls, framed the new wall between the bedrooms, and lined the window boxes.

We also have finished the electrical sockets. Yes, "we". I learned to wire a socket and finished the bedroom and did the bathroom all on my lonesome. I can't say I did a perfect job, but I passed the "smoke test" as Troy calls it and nothing (so far) is so bad it has to be redone. :) It is wonderful to have power in the rooms and not to have to string an extension cord up the stairs. It is also wonderful to have an outlet just about anywhere you want one. A far cry from the previous one-socket-per-room allowance. We have not done anything with the lights yet or the wiring in the interior walls. All the focus has been to get the exterior walls done and insulated.

We put up vapour barrier and had the fun experience of working with tar. It's called "acoustic sound barrier" but it is tar in a tube. Troy happened to read the box the other night and laughed to read that they call the product "non-staining". I can not imagine what they mean by that because it is tar--it is black and it never stops spreading to everything.

So the next step is drywall. I estimate we are about one third done. Thanks to Troy's insistence on using 3/4", we are getting a work out. We're bringing it into the house and up the stairs in stages, partly because I get tired and partly because the wet weather keeps interrupting our progress. Tune in next time and I'll show you what it looks like when it actually looks like a room!! Drywall is magic that way.

I'll leave you with a shot from the construction zone (master bedroom) into the room that we are currently sleeping in.

Yes, what a mess! I can't wait to put some drywall on the wall between the rooms, even though the room will feel really small then because I have gotten used to being able to see the full length of the house!