whoa

In what seems like a whirlwind compared to their previous effort, the drywallers have been here all three days this week and the downstairs drywall is practically done. Seriously. We took delivery of the materials on Monday, the hanging crew hung it all on Tuesday, and the taping crew just left after taping and mudding the whole thing today. All that's left is a day of drying time, skim-coating (probably Friday), and sanding (probably Monday).

And, of course, fixing the problems. You didn't think it was all smooth sailing, did you? Fortunately, there's nothing so egregious downstairs as the window issues upstairs (beautifully fixed, by the way, for more money, of course). The biggest issue is that in the half-wall that divides the kitchen from the dining room, there's a little plastic thingie that protects the gas line that goes to the stove. The hanging crew didn't notice it, and just slapped drywall up over the top of it without realizing that it makes the wall bend out - and, more drastically, back in. The result is a relatively drastic curve in the wall that's going to make hardwood flooring an issue. We're going to try to get the drywallers to fix it, either by taking down the sheet and re-hanging it or, I suppose, by using copious amounts of mud to sculpt it back into shape. Whatever. That's really the only issue I have, although Don is dubious about a couple of other things. We'll see how things go.

Depending on how all this problem-solving goes, we could potentially be putting primer up on the walls as soon as next weekend, which is shockingly fast. I mean, shockingly fast for around here. I hear there are other renovations that get done in LESS than four years, can you believe it?

drywall pictures!

So the drywallers are, in theory, done upstairs. In practice, they're not - they still have to come back and re-hang those window walls, which should be happening today or tomorrow. Then they'll be done. In any case, they're done enough to take pictures, which is what I know you've all been waiting for.

Looking in to the master bedroom from the landing:


Standing just inside the master bedroom door - when I took this I was basically standing in the doorway to the master bathroom, which is directly opposite the master closet, which is the door you see in the picture below (yes, the closet has a window!):


The master bathroom - or at least some of it. The drywallers have to come back here, too, to finish the area around the tub. The master shower is to the left of the picture - it doesn't all fit in one frame. The drywall in here is greenboard, which is a specific kind of sheetrock used for rooms that can get wet, like bathrooms. It's not the same as durarock, which is the cement board used behind tile (that's what's in the shower):


The middle (and smallest) bedroom, which will be a nursery - hopefully by the end of this year! (No, Mom, no news):


The back bedroom, which will be the guest room. Hard to take pictures of - I stood in the doorway to get as much in as I could. There's a sizeable nook in front of the closet you can see on the left, and the window is centered in the room, so that should tell you how much room didn't fit in the picture on the right:


And finally, the guest bathroom. Small, but serviceable. The nook behind the bathtub will get some sort of shelving built in for towels and toiletries, as the sink that's going in here is a pedestal to save room.

a somewhat convoluted update

So, the drywall upstairs is nearly done. It looks super cool - if you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen a couple of fuzzy cameraphone pics. I'll take better pictures soon. The drywall process is as follows:

-Stock (bring it into the house, an event which can take a whole day by itself)
-Hang (attach sheets of drywall to walls, cut around electrical outlets, lights, etc)
-Tape and mud (stretch tape over each seam, use joint compound to make a smooth wall)
-Mud some more (fill in big dents, make corners sharp, generally make walls)
-Skim coat (make it pretty - check for last imperfections, fill in)
-Sand (after all mud is really, really dry, sand it so it's perfectly smooth)

The upstairs is currently past its second mudding, and is slowly drying (the drywallers did the first and second coats all at once, so it takes a while to dry). In theory, they could come in tomorrow and skim coat, let that dry, and sand on Friday so that we could move upstairs this weekend.

But.

The windows in the two guest rooms (back and middle bedrooms) are kind of badly framed in, in that the framing for the windows juts out into the room a bit. So currently the drywall is cut around it, and it looks kind of icky. Ordinarily one would just fix this by hiding it with trim, but the framing is significantly wider than the windows themselves and we really don't want huge trim around two random windows! So the drywaller was over today, inspecting his crew's work and delivering some materials, and he suggested a solution: add another layer of drywall. It'll make everything even, covering the framing and going right to the window. It might not be the simplest solution (which would be, I don't know, ignoring it? Attempting to spackle?), but it'll be the best one. If we want it done right, this is what to do.

So now the plan is for the crew to come in and skim coat the rest of the upstairs. Either they or their boss will come in and hang, tape, and mud the two window-walls before the weekend, and the new drywall will be skimmed on Monday, with sanding on Wednesday. So far it seems like a good plan to me - not only can we take a break this weekend (poor Don has already worked 120 hours in this 80 hour pay period, with two more days to go!), but it'll give us extra time to clean up and move next week. I might even be able to get the electrician to come in and turn the electricity on up there!

The only drawback? I made this decision totally unilaterally - Don's still at work and has no idea. Eep! Let's hope he agrees with me - and is willing to pay for the extra sheets of drywall!

glamorous action shot

The upstairs drywall is about three-quarters of the way hung. Due to some sort of delivery snafu, the hanging crew ran out of drywall on Friday. So, being practical fellows, they left. More drywall has, I'm told, been ordered and should be delivered today. I'm told that the upstairs will be completely finished by Friday - mud, tape, sanding and all. I am dubious.

Should it actually happen, Don and I will move all of our stuff upstairs this weekend (PS anybody who feels like coming over for some heavy lifting let me know) and the crew will start work on drywalling the downstairs next Monday. If it happens like that, awesome, but I'm not holding my breath.

submitted without comment

Mostly because the only comment I've got starts and ends with exclamation points.