TGIF...

Great way to start off Friday--relaxed after having dinner with friends last night and ready to embrace the house.

Bill and Bob finished installing the insulation and sheetrock in the kitchen. Larry rented a drywall and panel hoist to help make it easier to install the sheetrock in the ceiling. Precision and accuracy are today’s terms. Every inch of insulation was used with no scraps left behind and Bill had figured eighteen sheets of sheetrock and bought twenty to be safe. There are only bits and pieces of the drywall left for the garbage.

I bought sandwiches and carrot cake to celebrate Larry’s birthday with guys. It was a nice break in the day. Later, Larry’s mom had us over for dinner.

I finished cleaning out the drawers that came out of the bathroom cabinet in the guest bathroom. The big job this weekend will be to remove all the coats in the entryway closet and the small coat closet and take everything upstairs. Taping and mudding the sheetrock will begin on Monday, and in between coats, it needs to be sanded and the dust will be everywhere. A plastic sheet will be placed across the doorway into the study to keep most of the dust out, but it will still be a mess. Towels will be put under the doors into the dining room to try and dustproof it. The closet doors are off the linen closet in the upper hallway so I will need to take everything out and put it in one of the bedrooms.

We had a relaxing morning Saturday and Dave and Brenda invited us to dinner for a hot home cooked meal (beef stew with biscuits) with real plates and silverware. We played Farkle (a dice game) and made an ice cream run before watching a movie. This was a nice evening spent with friends and Brenda got her cabinet door with the chicken from Larry.

Until you look inside a wall or ceiling you cannot predict what problems you will find. One more that cropped up today is installing the stove hood vent. Bill will have a meeting with Troy on Monday to look closer at the cabinet plan and explain what our installation problems are to come up with a solution.

Troy’s solution, since he is not on the job, is for Bill to figure out the puzzle of the hood vent. In a remodel you lose control over the idea/conception when reality takes over and you understand what parameters you have to work within.

Bill’s mind is working overtime as he tapes and mud’s the sheetrock. By the end of Monday everything has a first coat of mud on the wall and Bill thinks he has a solution for the venting.

Tuesday morning Bill arrives with a new piece of pipe to marry the new hood with the existing venting pipe. Until this problem is figured out, the small rectangle of ceiling left to be sheet rocked cannot be enclosed. This needs to happen today so the ceiling can be closed up, tape, mudded, and the wall sanded. The texture guys will be here later this week to blend the new wall with the existing walls. We don’t have smooth flat walls; just a sort of very slight, almost unnoticeable texture that if not matched would be very noticeable.

Painting will start the end of the week, maybe, and in the kitchen that means only very tiny places, under the window in the panty, over the sink, and a small place by the stairs, over the baseboard heater for the walls and the ceiling. Everything else in the kitchen will be covered in cabinets. The major areas for paint are refinishing the staircase, painting the entryway, sitting area off the kitchen and living room.

Troy called this morning to remind us the cabinets have arrived. Bill just laughed and said maybe next week. There is no place to put them as the garage is full of appliances, a makeshift kitchen, and most important the Harley. The living room is full of tools and jobsite paraphernalia.
Bill has just informed me that the venting for the hood was never hooked up properly, meaning it was just a pipe that didn’t connect to the outside fan--that is frozen and non working and will be removed altogether--and a vent screen will cover the outside hole. I think the people who built this house must have had a philosophy of when in doubt don’t worry, don’t make it work, we’ll cover it up with sheetrock and no one will ever know.

Bill has a new helper today, Jeff, for the venting and sheetrock. Bob is off on another job or as Bill speculates, snowboarding with the new powder we got on Mt. Baker last night.

The new bathroom sink for the master bath was delivered so we need to find a vanity top for it to sit on. The Edison bulbs for the island lighting fixture have shipped and will arrive with a few days. The slipcover for the loveseat in the living room has shipped and I have found cotton muslin cheesecloth to make drapery panels. Kim said she could pick up my curtain rods this weekend in Seattle from IKEA if I get her all the information on what I need. I am still on the hunt for kitchen handles, something sleek and modern, and hopefully won’t cost an arm and a leg.

Since the former owner sort of Jerry-built the lower shelving unit in our bathroom linen closet I have been searching for an inexpensive and easy idea to replace this. (They stood one by ones in the corner, unattached to the wall and set six foot shelves on top to hold them in place. We never realized how unsecure they were and how lucky we are that they never collapsed and fell when they were bumped.) If I can find wooden cubes, I can stack two sideways on each end of the closet, place on of the shelves on top and then stack one additional cube on top with the remaining shelf. The hamper will fit back in the open space underneath the shelf and the cubes will hold bath mats, toilet paper, and all the essential items you need but also need to store out of the way.

Wednesday, Tony the plumber arrived to find a small pond under the house…go figure after all the rain we have had in the past few days. He plugged in the pump again to run today and we will run it again all day Sunday so that he can hopefully get the rest of the new pipes installed under the house.
Bill was here early to clean up the bits and pieces of debris and then up to another job to do the same before he returns to work on mudding the ceiling. Thursday will probably be the messy day with sanding.

I talked to Bruce, the flooring guy, and we have settled on Congoleum Connections plank flooring in a dark wood grain pattern for both the upstairs bathrooms. This is much heavier and has a twenty-five year guarantee. It cost about twice as much as the other flooring we had picked out, but because we only need a few boxes, we felt it was a better choice.