Week 52  (Joe)

All of our drywall is now up.  It only took them 2 1/2 days to finish and (for the most part) everything went smoothly.  In my last post I commented on a couple issues that occurred after the 1st day of drywall.  The reality is that most of those issues have nothing to do with the quality of the drywall people and more about the oddities of our particular job.  For instance, the reason for this…

was because the drywall on the right did not have any blocking.  We knew there would be a few of these issues, but I was told that they would let me know so that I could fix them.  This did not happen.  It was obvious that I needed to be around so that I could point out what I wanted and what was wrong.

On Monday I was there to greet the guys hanging the drywall.  Only one spoke English and I’m not sure he really understood everything I was saying, but he was very friendly.  He didn’t mind at all that I needed him to redo a few sections.  I was working in the backyard all day and I just came inside every 1 or 2 hours to check on things and see if they had any questions.  This scenario worked much better.  I know we were frustrated that the drywall didn’t start on time, but the blessing is that now we are on Spring break and can oversee the process more closely.

I know I posted some drywall pictures yesterday, but I am going to post some more that I took after the scrap was all cleaned up.  One of the areas we were most curious to see was the whole stair case area.  We think it’s going to turn out great once all the detailing is done.

The stairs look so modern right now, but that will all change when the woodwork and details are complete.

Today was a cloudy and raining day, but still…  look at the great light bouncing around from that new front window in the upper gable.

The bathroom turned out way better than I thought it would when we originally started the planning process.  It is a nice size, bright, and unique.  That yellow area in the photo below is one area that I am going to fix.  That is the area that didn’t have any blocking and forced them to cover the beam that I wanted exposed.

The one area they are going to redo is the shower.  For whatever reason, they didn’t put they didn’t put the right type of board in the shower area.  Some of it is right, but some of it isn’t.  I had the “boss” come over and look at it and he is going to have them fix it tomorrow.

The picture below might be slightly confusing…  It is taken from the laundry area.  The area on the left will be Lucy’s extra play space, Aiden’s door is on the left, the master bedroom door is next to the ladder, and the loft space is at the top of the ladder.

It is so amazing to see the new spaces that we originally created with masking tape on the floor now actually existing in 3D.  I find myself just stopping and looking at every space from every different angle to notice how the light plays off of a certain wall or what the view is from a doorway.  We have been walking around in this space for nearly a year, but now it all looks completely different.

Tomorrow they begin taping and mudding.

Since the drywall process has kept us from working on the inside of the house, Amy and I have spent the past couple days working on the backyard and a new fence.  I’ll post pics of that in a couple days.