Raise the Roof

The master bedroom

Or at least, the ceiling.

Since I last posted about the drywall, Troy and I have been working on it in fits and spurts. After the insulation was done, we patched the holes and then started the taping and mudding.

Troy has also started to tackle the ceiling. He debated different solutions for a ceiling that was in bad shape and decided to apply foam insulation and drywall to the existing lathe and plaster. The room is tall enough that it can afford to lose and inch or two and it seemed the best option.

Of course before putting up the drywall, he had to locate and install all of the lighting fixtures. I had some of them marked and the switch boxes in for all of them, but he installed the fixtures and ran the final wiring.

Starting in the bathroom and closet area.
PS: He fixed the drywall lift so it no longer
is a risk that it may collapse on him and kill him.

He also had to put a final fix on the chimney. This chimney:

The first winter we were here, Troy put in the woodstove and this chimney to go with it. For a little while after it was installed, we could lay in bed and look through the ceiling and through the roof to admire the stars! Of course Troy fixed the roof very quickly, but there has been a gap in the ceiling around the pipe ever since. That was a lot of hot air escaping to the attic and dust coming down in to the bedroom.

But no more:

What a nice seal! Ok, I don't really care about the seal as long as it keeps the dust (and all that insulation we blew into the attic) in the attic!

Here are few more general shots of the rooms:

Looking southeast through the doorway.

Looking southeast again, this time in the doorway.

Looking northwest (toward the doorway).

Looking southwest.

Drywall

I promised some pictures of rooms with drywall and here they are. Unfortunately, Troy was faster with drilling holes for insulation than I was with the camera. The walls looked a lot nicer without the big holes!

West room (what will become the closet and bathroom), looking at the southwest corner:

 Same room, looking at the southeast corner:

You can see the interior walls have not been worked on yet...well, beyond structural stuff I mean.

Here is the main bedroom, looking at the southeast corner:

 And the northeast corner of the same room:

 And this is looking straight north at the room we are currently sleeping in:

That's right! You can't see it because there is finally a wall (drywall) between the room and the construction zone. Yeah!

It also meant we could finally keep the cat out of the room so Troy's allergies wouldn't be quite so bad overnight. But we're still getting used to not being able to go around when the door is shut!

So that is the quick tour.

Kitchen Catch Up

We've made some milestones in the kitchen and it feels like things are moving fast right now. After missing a few weekends (where Troy still made progress), I have put in some time during the week. Troy has also been able to use a couple of his "free Wednesdays" for kitchen work.

First up--Troy finished the box for the cabinet above the fridge, first the framing,

and then encasing it with drywall:

And earlier this week, Troy finished up the insulation on the ceiling of the west half:

I have no progress pictures (shame on me), but he worked on it a lot over the Thanksgiving weekend. His dad was visiting and helped a lot with this project. Each bay is filled with seven inches of foam insulation. This means that the kitchen is completely insulated!!! Isn't that amazing!? Thank goodness. The room is toasty and I do not at all miss the freezing draft that used to pour out the gap where the beam now is.

Once the ceiling was insulated, we could drywall. Or at least that's what Troy said we were going to do last night. But he neglected to mention that we would have to do more plastic first. That was a "big sigh" moment for me, but then I remembered to just carry on.

So first we hung some plastic and stapled everything up to 4 inches from the wall. Then Troy went around and put caulk all around the outside edges:

Then we pushed the plastic to the edges, into the caulk, and stapled it to death:

And of course, we had to let the lightboxes "out."

Once the plastic was done we still had time to put up the drywall. We ended up with the cliche footsteps on the ceiling.

(I still find that funnier than it actually is.)

Here's a better view of the whole ceiling:

I successfully convinced Troy to do the big pieces in two 6 foot lengths rather than an 8 foot and 4 foot. (We had to cut up two pieces either way and it resulted in the same number of seams.) I'm not sure I could have held up an 8 foot length. I do not have the strength for this!! We had to use a bunch of 4 foot patch-ins for the very west edge. They don't look good, but they'll all end up under the upper cabinets, so we're not worrying about it and neither should you!

We almost got it done--there's just this little corner left:

By the time we got this far, it was 10:00 and Troy was calling it quits. (Yes, please note it was Troy for once who said he couldn't take any more.) It's left me with a full day to kick myself for cutting up the scrap piece of drywall that would have been perfect for this gap.

You see before we got started, I cut up and threw out some drywall scraps to keep myself busy while Troy was doing something. Little did I know that one of them would be needed later. Troy tells me to get over these things, but I find it hard to do. What I should really do is go look to see if there's another "perfect" scrap in the shop to fill this up. And take out the garbage bag with the cut up scrap. Then maybe I could stop thinking about it. It's getting late, but there's still a chance I could do that before Troy gets home from work. We'll see.

So if I don't get to it first, tonight we will finish the drywall and then tape and mud so that we can paint tomorrow. (Now that the work pizza party and Thanksgiving are done, it's time to get back to Servitude Sundays.) Then we'll start installing cabinets.

It's really going to come true. I can barely believe it.

Kitchen Work Continues

I think it's been a while since you got an update, but I assure you we have been working.

Troy got the oil stove installed in the kitchen and what a difference it has made. In a case of perfect timing, we got our first snow the day after he got it in! It is still a very foreign feeling to walk into the kitchen and have it be warm; and for a day or two, actually too hot! Big change.

It's very gratifying to feel the effect of the insulation already. Even though the oil stove made a big different last year, the kitchen was never actually warm. Just not freezing. I can't wait to move the table and chairs into the room (or even better, to install a booth) because it is by far the most comfortable room and right now we can't really sit in it!

We've continued the mudding and sanding of the drywall in the kitchen. I made a rookie mistake and did some final sanding this morning without changing the sand paper. So...I did more mudding today to fix the mistake.

I also capped and mudded the last of the insulation holes:

If I hadn't had to mud this morning, I may have been able to paint. Paint!! I can barely believe we're that far. I need to put one coat on the all the drywall before we put in the cabinets. And Troy is really pushing, so I may yet do the areas behind the cabinets tonight. We'll see...

And speaking of cabinets, they have been patiently waiting in the shop.

But they haven't just been sitting there. I had to move them again today. Troy has been dying to order a lathe for the last while. (He can tell you exactly how long...) He finally saved enough to do it and was told that it would be a couple months before the company was able to ship it, so he went ahead and "pulled the trigger" about two weeks ago. Imagine his surprise when he got an email on Wednesday that his lathe has shipped!

What does this have to do with cabinets? Well, Troy needs the tractor to unload the beast. The tractor is parked in the shop. In the shop behind 19 cabinets. I spent the first part of my afternoon moving them over to the other side of the shop. They like to get around. The base cabinets have been moved into the kitchen and then back into the shop. The uppers have been set up in the shop and then stacked back up. And now they all have jumped over about 20 feet to the south. Except the corner base cabinet. (The one we had to remove the front door to get into the house.) It has moved to the kitchen and stayed put. Must be a little lazy.

Another thing that Troy has been working on is the "bump out" that he needs to build to support the cabinet above the fridge. I don't think you can see it, but this corner is covered in his scribbles and plans for exactly how it needs to be done.

The fridge will fit into this nook but the cabinet needs to be further out than where the back wall is currently. So he basically has to build a hollow box that is the exact size of the cabinet. Sounds simple, but there's always more to it than you think.

No update tomorrow. I will be wrapping up the haunting season with the annual pizza party. (More work than fun, unfortunately.) But I'm starting to believe I will survive this season. Three more work days and things should get back to what counts as normal.

Servitude Sunday: Over time

More drywall done today.

The first piece we cut had seven cutouts: three outlets, the exhaust fan box, gas pipe, water pipe and a power cord.

We thought once that was in, all the hard ones were done. Turns out that wasn't quite right, but we carried on.

Most of the dryall is being dropped in the gap between the new floor and the studs:

The vapour barrier is wrapped from behind the drywall, down under the drywall and then back up. Some silicone has been put between the plastic and the floor to make a good seal.

It didn't go quite as quick as we had hoped, but by the start of Sunday night football, we had all the drywall up:

All the drywall we had purchased that is. (Gotcha.)

Although it's nice to have the floor clear again (even if it's covered in drywall dust), it would have been nicer to have enough drywall to finish.

We need two more sheets of 8-foot and two more of 10-foot. The pieces that are left do not have many cutouts so hopefully they will go pretty quickly.

And One Thing Leads to Another

So I mentioned the [partial] rehabilitation of the dining room? Apparently being able to see the room again has inspired Troy to work on it again.

It didn't hurt that he got all the holes plugged in the shop...yeah!! The mudding is also done, and he now has to wait for it to dry before he can start painting. Paint! Can you believe it? That's, like, finally a layer you can actually see when things are considered done. Wow. Milestone here.

Back to the drying mud...that may take a while as the shop is still quite cool--about 50^F now that the holes are plugged and the windows are insulated.

So that brings me to the dining room. When the shop was finished today, Troy moved his supplies and himself to the dining room to finish the job there. So, yes, the dining room holes are all plugged too.

There is more mudding and sanding to do there, so I may have removed the plastic dust barriers just a little too soon?

Well, as Troy reminded me, it can always go back up...

Mud on the Ceiling

Wondering what we've been up to? You can see that the ceiling is "getting there." I have to say Troy does not seem too excited about it and will do anything but while the weather is still ok. He figures mudding with snow flying will be just fine.

Adding insulation around the slab, however, would not be any fun in the snow.
This has to get done before we do siding and Troy is pretty motivated to get that done this fall.
This is the first layer. Troy did three on the east wall so I assume he'll be doing the same here. Six inches of foam insulation. The rather frequent rain has been slowing progress here.

One other task he did the other day was to affix the power box to the wall. Until then, it had been rather comically bouncing around on the conduit, somewhat like a weeble wooble toy.

But not anymore!

Drywall and Other Fun

It's been a busy weekend, but most of the work you're seeing here was done last week.

I wish I could convey the feeling of looking at 70 feet of drywall all taped and mudded (1 coat). It looks so different than raw drywall.

Isaac has been doing a credible job and has the first coat done on the west wall and most of the north wall. By golly, this might get done yet!

Because of company and requisite entertainments, we decided not to do insulation again this week. Being so close to done with it, I have to admit to being a little frustrated with not having the time to work on it. (Did I just say that?)

Troy, however, very happily kept himself entertained with dressing up his trailer as he had mentioned he was going to do.

You may recall that the last holiday we had (Memorial Day) we enjoyed Insul-a-palooza. But July 4 was quite different. While the company and Isaac went to the zoo, I painted and mowed, and Troy spent the whole day working on his trailer. I mean the whole day. A few breaks for food.

Sunday after our picnic, he did the same. It is getting real close to looking like a box again.

A bonus for me of all this welding is that Troy hooked up an outlet for the welder out in the shop. The two thumbs up on that are:

1. it gets the welder out of my kitchen and frees up 1 more square foot of floor space, and
2. the welder will no longer hog my dryer outlet when I wish to do laundry.

Just in case you wanted to know what's in it for me.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

We have reached the milestone of finishing the drywall in the shop! (Trumpet flourish, please.)

We put up the drywall in the last corner on Friday night:

We are now free to go really crazy with insulation and put it everywhere. It also helps to make the shop look that much more "finished" (from the inside).

West end of shop

Sadly, the first thing Troy will have to do to that nice drywall is drill holes for the insulation. He tells me that's just how it goes.

And in case you want a review, here is the east end of the shop:

We were going to go crazy with insulation again tomorrow, but Troy came home from work very sick this evening so those plans are uncertain right now.

Progress Continues

Check this out, the shop is starting to look like a real room:

These shots are looking east (northeast above, southeast below).
Check out all the drywall! Troy has been able to actually get some of the ceiling done now that the lift is working. He got 5 (five!) sheets up last night after work, and some more this afternoon while he was waiting for me to come out.
I was out there to help hang another course of plastic. Troy was running out of room for drywall and he wanted to get the opening in the north wall covered so he could install the window. The last course only covered it half way so we had to do another. If he can get the window installed on Tuesday as planned, the shop will be completely secured. Another milestone!

Lest you think we are almost done, here is a view of the west end:
I had a happy thought when I realized that three more courses of plastic will get us to the west wall. Yeah! I can handle three more. Doing three of almost anything is definitely running down the homestretch. 3, 2, 1, done! Then I had a sad thought when I realized that didn't include the west wall itself. But then Optimistic Me retorted that the west wall will be easy because the ceiling will be done (no overhead work) and there are no obstructions on the wall at all. I was back to "Woo hoo! We can do it!"

Another thing I did today was paint a few more markers at the studs. I try to keep ahead of the plastic. The yellow can crapped out, so I went for a new colour. No more yellow to match (first choice), so I used white (second choice). Troy was dubious and justifiably so. It didn't show up very well, and with just a little wear and tear would not show up at all. So next up was a very look-at-me red. (Third's the charm.) It looks so good it makes the painting fun. I may have to redo all the yellow ones. Because, you know, they might not show up after a little wear either. :wink: That and, as everyone knows, everything looks better in red.

All for tonight. Think good work-hard thoughts for us,

christina

More Drywalling...with Excitement

Working in the shop has greatly improved since the temperatures have come up to about freezing. When I joined Troy today, the torpedo heater was going and things were positively toasty. Well, ok, my fingers were a little "heat challenged" but that improved as I started moving around a little more. (I guess that's a euphemism for working harder.)

Just in case any of you doubters remain, Troy insisted on capturing proof today that I do drywall.

Not that you can really tell that it's me. (Unless you're a really good study of my butt, and if you are, I don't really want to know about it, and you probably shouldn't admit to it.) You can admire my new workboots and toolbelt. (Not purple, but this one actually works.)

After putting in a few full sheets of drywall, I started to do some of the fiddly pieces we had to cut around the interior walls. One nice thing about this is that the pieces are generally sized so I can handle them on my own. And another is that I can learn some drywall skills out in the shop before I'm forced to "showcase" them in the house. Because right now, I'm slow...but sloppy. (To paraphrase a friend.)

While I was cutting those pieces Troy thought he would keep himself productive by continuing with the ceiling pieces. A one-man job with the drywall lift. For some background let me share that this is the same drywall lift that has attempted to kill Troy a couple times. And those of you with any sense of foreshadowing can now guess that it tried it again. First piece of drywall is headed up to the ceiling, Troy gets it right up at 12 feet, and SMASH, it hurtles down at Troy, but missed because he has learned to duck. There was some unladylike language but that's ok because Troy is not a lady.

This prompts Troy to "fix it good." So he spends the rest of the day going to buy parts, disassembling the lift, and trying to reassemble it with heavier-duty cables. It's not finished yet, but Troy is hopeful that it is in the last stages. This left me working alone in the shop. Yes, I have been promoted to unsupervised drywall work. Woo hoo...wonder if I'll get a raise? (More responsibility and all...)

We now have the walls half done, and the ceiling is still about a quarter done. But before we do any more, we'll have to hang some more plastic. Blah...

Good night from

-Slow...but sloppy.