Relax

Today was a relaxing day. Kerry and I went to HomeDepot and the only reason I went to the third floor was to put some mud up there that I bought. I guess I could have worked but it was nice to take a day off. We took the girls out to eat at King Buffet, the new Chinese buffet in town. They got straight A's on their report cards and that is one of the rewards.

Tomorrow is Sunday so I won't be working up on the third floor again. Guess I will try to work harder on Monday.

Fun!!

A friend from church dropped by and told me that I looked fuzzy. Kerry and I blew the insulation in the attic if you can't tell.
I blew the insulation about 7 inches deep so it is like R25. It will be better than what was up there before. I think it was only about 4 inches deep. The humps in the insulation are the ducts for the air conditioning.
After blowing the insulation we spent some time cleaning up and taking all the extra construction stuff downstairs. It looks a lot bigger with all the stuff gone. I also threw a bit of mud on the wall.

The next few days it will be mud, sand, mud sand....

Done taping

I was able to finish up all the taping today. It went faster than I thought it would.
Kerry said that she thought there were a lot of angles up there. I told her she was right. She isn't able to hear that very often so she was happy. =) I quit a little early today so we could go visit a friend from church in the hospital.

Tomorrow we are going to blow the insulation in the attic. It will be nice to get all the bags of insulation out of the way.

Home again

The company sent me home from Memphis. I am now sitting on reserve duty at home. I will hopefully be able to get a lot done the next couple of days. It just makes working on the house that much sweeter when I am supposed to be at work.

I finished taping all of the bathroom. There sure are a lot of odd angles in there. I will be tiling up to where I stopped taping.

This is the other side of the bathroom. The outlet is for the vanity light and of course the vanity will be right below it.

Tomorrow if they leave me at home I will be taping the rest of the big room. I already taped all the butt joints and will take care of all the corners and taper joints. It is warm enough up there that it is drying pretty fast.

Surprise!

The company decided that I could go home for the weekend instead of spending it in Memphis. I figured it couldn't hurt to ask if they would let me... and they said yes. I was able to put a little mud and tape up on my drywall. I didn't get near as much done as I wanted because I had to make a HomeDepot run. It took about 4 hours from when we left till when we got home. They are now at 20 - 4o% off and we couldn't pass up some of the savings. We loaded up on tile, baseboard trim, and drywall supplies.
The shower area is now ready for the tile. I think I will do the tile after I finish the drywall. Instead of putting up drywall and then covering it with 1/4 inch backer board I just put the 1/2 inch backer board up to start with.

We picked up some 8 x 10 inch tile that I am going to put up in a running bond pattern.

Tomorrow I might do a little mudding before I have to head back to Memphis.

Screwed up!

I finally screwed up the drywall. It only took about 45 minutes today to go up and finish all the screws that I left out. Feels good to be done with it so I can begin with the mud when I get home.

I am in Tulsa right now and will go to Memphis this weekend. Kerry and the girls are probably going to come down there and visit since they will be out of school. Guess I won't really have anything to share for a little while.

Drywall is up!

We finished up the last 4 strips of drywall this afternoon. It only took about 45 minutes. I have to fly to Tulsa tomorrow for training. I will be there until Friday.

Tomorrow morning I am going to try to get some mud on the ceiling. I am not sure if I will have the motivation or not. I will only have a couple hours and that usually isn't enough time to justify getting really dirty. =)

So close!

Well, we almost made it! Just a few more strips to put up. We cut the strip to go below the large bank of windows and were going to put it up... alas, it needs some shims. I also need to shim up underneath the windows by the outside door and we need to put up a small strip under the bathroom window. Other than that... the drywall is all put up! I still have to go around and finish putting in some screws. I skipped a lot of screws to make sure that I didn't waste any time when I had Kerry's help. I was hoping to get the insulation blown in but I decided that I am not in any hurry to get it done. I would rather do some mudding instead.

Taylor came up and helped out with a little bit of the cleaning today. Erin was sick with strep throat. I can't believe we are still sweeping up plaster and old blown in insulation. That stuff is tenacious

I put the window back in that I fixed. It still needs to be painted so I didn't put it in permanent. I think it might be the only window in the house that works correctly. I put in new ropes to the counter weights. You can see at the bottom of the windows the place that the strip of drywall will go.

Tomorrow we might head to Home Depot and get some more stuff now that they went to 20 and 40 percent off. I might do a little something on the house also tomorrow since I will be headed to work on Monday for 13 days. I really want to have those little strips up and some mud on the ceiling.

Almost there...

It sure was fun shimming up the 2x4's so they will be the right thickness. It took a few hours but I did it. I had to free hand most of the pieces on the table saw. I don't have a jig that cuts lumber at an angle. All the new looking wood in the above picture is 2x4's that I had to cut to thickness.

The end walls are all shimmed up also and I will be able to finish the drywall tomorrow. I have about 10 more sheets that I have to put up. Kerry decided we should quit about 9:30 tonight. She wasn't able to help much tonight because she had to take Erin to the clinic. Erin has strep throat.

Tomorrow I will finish the drywall and tape up the seams on the ceiling. I need to tape the ceiling seams so I can get the insulation blown in.

I'm fit

Well, I got my flight physical today. I am good for another 6 months. I also got my new drivers license, got an insurance quote, filled out some property tax forms, checked on a tax lien, went to our current insurance agent, went by city hall, went to a program for Taylor, got two free chicken sandwiches, and glazed two window panes.

In other words... I wasn't able to get much done on the house today. I will pick up where I left off tomorrow. I have no more errands to run.

Plumbing

We have water on the third floor now! We even have a way for it to drain. =) I hooked up the drain on the tub and put in the shower valve. Pex is really easy to work with. The pipe for the tub spout had to be copper so it would be solid enough to hook to.
The above picture is where I tapped into one of the cold water lines in the basement. You can see a little of the stone foundation of the house behind the lines.
This is a picture of where I tapped into one of the hot water lines. Notice the valve on the right side. I used this particular hot water line because it had this valve to shut off the water to the second floor. The cold water line is just behind it and that is where I was planning to come off with the cold water lines. The only problem is... these type of valves never shut off all the way. I tried and tried to get it to completely shut off to no avail. You can't solder pipes when they have even a little bit of water in them. I had to wind up shutting the water off to the whole house anyway. I will eventually have a manifold to hook into. These tap offs are just temporary.

While I was going back and forth from the basement to the third floor I decided to count the amount of stairs. There are 42 stair steps.

I shimmed out the studs around the window in the bathroom. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Tomorrow I have to go get my flight physical. I won't be able to start on the house until around noon. I am going to shim up some walls and hopefully get closer to the last piece of drywall.

Getting closer!

If we are strategic with how we take the pictures it almost looks like we are close to finished! Kerry took a personal health day today since she had to go to the orthodontist this morning. Kerry sure is a hard worker. I tried to take breaks and she would send me right back to work.

We dropped by Home Depot after Kerry's appointment and picked up another 16 bags of insulation. We picked up another few things while we were there. Once again... all the stuff we bought didn't make it home. We stopped to have breakfast at McDonalds and between the time we walked in and sat at a window to watch the truck someone stole a towel rod we had sitting back there.

Tomorrow I am going to do a little plumbing. I need to get the pipes hooked up and leak tested before I put the drywall up in the bathroom.

Surprise! More drywall

I never realized there were this many little corners and stuff when I was tearing out the lath and plaster. I am able to make some of them with tighter joints than others. This is a picture of where the tub/shower is going to be. The faucet will be on the left side and the shower head is going to be on the side just above my head in the above picture.
This is the tub. It is cast iron and it is HEAVY! Burt was over and helped me maneuver it back into place. I think we could lift it if we really tried... but we didn't try.
I am not sure how much drywall I put up today. I went to Home Depot and got 20 bags of blow in insulation. I only made it home with 19 of them. =) One of them fell off the back of the truck and exploded all over the road. What a waste of 8 dollars. It was kind of cool watching it go POOF as it hit the road.

Burt also helped me bring the blower up stairs that a guy from church loaned me. Kerry and I tried it out. It blows just fine and covers EVERYTHING in dust. It is going to be a great time blowing it all in the attic. (I decided to use blown in insulation again.)

Tomorrow I am going to put up more drywall and probably have to shim up the end walls. I have put it off long enough.

Saturday

It is never easy to do dormers! This one turned out pretty well though. Kerry thought the fun part was putting the fiberglass insulation up in the ceiling of it.
We are plodding along... I think we put up about 8 sheets of drywall today. We also put insulation up in the ceilings of all the dormers. We also insulated the exterior side walls of the dormers. There are three dormers. I still have a lot of work to do around all the windows. When you take lath and plaster off and put sheetrock back on... there is a gap. To fill the gap you have to shim the walls up so the sheetrock matches where the trim is going to be attached. I have been putting off doing those walls because I am not looking forward to doing that. It is going to be time consuming and tedious.

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. I took Erin and Taylor to Walmart so they could find gifts for their mom. I am sure she will enjoy her day.

More drywall

Kerry helped me lift one of the 14 foot pieces of drywall up onto the lift so we could do this part of the ceiling. I might have said this before. This drywall lift has made putting the drywall on the ceiling SO much easier! I am now done with the lift. Burt is going to borrow it tomorrow to work on his basement. I still have one piece of drywall to put up on the ceiling but it is a small piece that I will put up after I insulate the ceiling. I lost track of time today and the local lumber yard, Lawrenceburg Supply, was already closed when I was ready to go pick up the R-30 insulation. I have to get some more R-13 for some of the angled ceiling and some 2x4 walls also.
When I was up in the ceiling I thought this would be a good picture of the duct installed by Layne Heating and Cooling. I am still amazed at the speed of the installation and how well they did the job.

Tomorrow this attic will be pink with insulation. Kerry has already volunteered to help. I am not sure if I will volunteer the girls for any of it yet. I am still trying to decide if it will be easier to do it with just Kerry or to let the girls help and listen to them complain about itching for the next few days.

Air conditioning

We are proud owners of a brand new HVAC unit! This picture is of some of the ducting up in the ceiling. My friend from Layne Heating and Cooling called this morning and asked if he could install the unit today. He was at the house about 45 minutes later with all the equipment and we had it running by this afternoon. I think that is one of the quickest AC installs I have heard of. It took less than 24 hours from when he gave me the price until it was running!

I had to build out a few inches into the bedroom to fit the blower unit. We put the heat pump unit on the second floor deck. It cost quite a bit more to install a full blown HVAC unit but I think it will be better in the long run. I wasn't sure how I liked the idea of window AC units hanging out the windows on the third floor. I was a little worried about them winding up on the ground 25 feet below!

So... I guess I am back in business of hanging drywall tomorrow. I was going to use blown in insulation in the attic but I think I have decided to go with R30 fiberglass. I have repressed memories of working with insulation when I was young but... it isn't as bad as I remember it. I remembered a little of it when I had the girls helping me with some fiberglass insulation when we insulated the crawlspace at the house in the county. By the end of the day both girls were crying because they itched so bad. Oh the memories...

Raise the roof!

The drywall lift in action! Makes putting 12 foot drywall on the ceiling a breeze. The hardest part is lifting it onto the lift. It isn't that heavy though if you are only raising it a few feet. The lift comes down and slants so you only have to lift the drywall about waist high.
I finished the ceiling in the large room except for two pieces. I would have finished them but a friend dropped by to talk about putting forced air and heat in the third floor. I was planning on just doing baseboard heat and window air conditioning units. He gave me a good price and told me that it would be the best way to go if I installed an entire unit. Layne Heating and Cooling is the name of his business. He is the one that installed both units on the house we rebuilt out in the county.

I will have to play it by ear tomorrow to see what I can get done. I have to rethink my game plan because I can't work on the ceiling anymore. We are going to run the ducts in the ceiling and put the compressor in the second floor deck. Funny how just when things start to roll along... a wrench gets thrown into the works.

Home again!

I made it back home! They actually sent me back home on the day I was supposed to come home. I didn't even have to fight with scheduling!

I wasn't able to get much done today. I slept in this morning because of the 24 hour day that I was up yesterday traveling home from London. I did a little plumbing and put up a piece of sheetrock on the ceiling to test out my new lift. It sure was a lot easier than holding it up while trying to screw it into the joists!

Kerry and I also went to Home Depot for the store closing sale. We only looked at the stuff that was 20 percent off or more. We got the light fixtures and ceiling fans and that kind of stuff that we won't need for a little while but it was on SALE!

Tomorrow I am going to insulate and start putting up more sheetrock. I have a few wires to finish to the ceiling fixtures as well.