(Some) Drywall is up!

Wow. I thought that the framing looked good, but now that all the vapor barrier is up and some of the drywall boards are up -- it is looking like a real room (actually, two rooms)! Yesterday we had a hired gun come to hang drywall with us. Dave is a skilled and experienced drywaller/handyman, but he is also a talented singer/songwriter in the Toronto band, The Warped 45s.

Dan woke up in the night with chills and sweats -- not good. So I got up at 7 a.m. to pull all the insulation out of the ceiling - again - because I put in too much. I replaced it with an adequate air space and started with the vapor barrier. The 22 sheets of 4' x 8' drywall arrived around 8:30 a.m. And Dave arrived right on time at 10 a.m. With Dan out of commission, it was just the two of us, and we finished up the vapor barrier and then started hanging sheets on the ceiling. My friend Chris very kindly offered to come and help out, standing in for Dan. It was great to have an extra pair of hands for the ceiling.

I learned a lot from Dave. He seemed to think that I knew more about drywalling than I really do, but since I'm good at faking it, it seemed to work out. We finished most of the ceiling and all the tub surround. At the 12 hour mark, I called it quits.

This morning I woke up with blisters on my drilling hand but a desire to keep going. Dan recovered from his 24 hour flu and together we attacked the most challenging board first. This one had six cutouts in it, plus the cutout for the recessed medicine cabinet. Dave and that DVD I borrowed from the library taught me how to properly measure and cut holes. The finished product is far superior to the work we did in the kitchen two years ago! Check out the tight fit on those receptacles and plumbing supplies. Woo hoo!

The boards in the bathroom are almost done and then we'll finish off the new office. Hopefully Dave will have some free time to do the taping and mudding, although his schedule is pretty full with music gigs and other jobs. We just may be tiling before December!!! Imagine that.

Let there be light!

For two weeks we have been at the electrical stage of the reno. We already pulled the wires in preparation, set them in the correct rooms, and planned the electrical layout. We need six receptacles (one GFCI), one recessed shower light, three overhead lights, one over mirror light, one exhaust fan, one TV/internet cable jack, one telephone jack and several switches to control it all. (We ran the wire for the floor heating, but we won't be installing that for some time.) I've refreshed my electrical knowledge with some books from the library, but the biggest challenge has been figuring out how to use a vapour barrier with recessed lights in a flat ceiling -- mixed messages!

For some reason, I thought that we could do all this in one Sunday. But now, as I write the list of work in prose form, it does seem like a lot. On a schematic, it seemed more straight forward.

Two weeks ago, I was thrilled when I installed a GFCI receptical which would protect all the other fixtures in the bathroom. The highlight of last weekend was getting showered with ashphault soot when pulling cables for the overhead lights and switches. It seems that when the roofers replaced the flat roof 3 years ago, the ashphault sifted through the roof boards and has been sitting on the insulation all this time. When we shifted anything in the ceiling, soot rained down on us. I was wearing safety glasses and a mask, but my face still got pretty dirty (see photo). Although I cheered up when I was able to wire the overhead fixtures.

But, there is never enough time! I still didn't get the new bedroom wired until today. We sealed the plumbing stack and window sill, and replaced 95% of the ceiling insulation. Tomorrow we hope to get the vapour barrier up and everything ready for drywall.

We were prepared to call in a pro for the drywalling, but he called today to say that he's too busy to do our job. If you know anybody, let me know. Otherwise, we're gonna try it ourselves next weekend. Wish us luck--we're going to need it!!!

Kitchen Unplugged

For some reason, the Nirvana unplugged album seems to stick most in my memory, but it seems that every musical performer gets into this style at one point or another. Sadly, Kitchen is not a new band. It is our woeful kitchen. Unplugged for 26 days now. Well, the stove that is. And the sink. And what is a kitchen without running water and the cooking machine? It is just another room. In our case, a room that looks like a tool shed.

Last Saturday, after the sub floor was replaced, Dan was so excited about the return of the stove that he took a pork tenderloin out of the freezer. He did not realize that we needed to finish the drywall first, or else we'd be pulling it out again and again. Tired of the takeout food scene of late, last night he pulled together a gourmet feast of glazed pork tenderloin with green beans - cooked in the toaster over & microwave. The carving was done amongst the tape measures & tools, on top of the new dishwasher box. And since that newest appliance is also still unplugged, I took the dishes into the basement and washed them in the laundry sink. I know that I'm not the first, nor the last to do this, but it still makes me laugh.

I have to say that I'm quite pleased with the drywall project so far. It did take a considerable amount of time for us to do all the cutouts for the plumbing & electrical stuff, but they fit together well in the end. As for the taping & mudding: it wasn't that bad. The green plastic tools that Matthew lent me, along with the tape & mud, plus the instructions that I read on the internet - it all worked fine. Dan did have to make a late night dash to Canadian Tire buy more mud. The biggest surprise was the amount of mud reqired for the job. Maybe I used too much and have a hellish amount of sanding to do. Hopefully not. Tomorrow morning is operation sanding. Can't wait to get that dust all over the house again. But even more exciting is that very soon, our stove will no longer be unplugged. Another leap forward in this crazy project.

Learning How to Install Drywall

When I made my kitchen reno plan, drywalling wasn't even on the list - or the budget. But, when I removed the backsplash tiles, the wall came out in chunks, which I was planning to simply patch. I went to my plumbing class that night, complaining about my predicament and a fellow student said: don't scrape off all that old adhesive. It's not worth it. Just replace the drywall.

Easier said than done. But now is the time to learn how to drywall. My friend Matthew says that the best way to learn something is to do it. He's right.

Another kind classmate at plumbing turned out to be a drywaller, and offered to bring me some scraps from his job site. He followed through and actually delivered them to my house. We kept the drywall screws from the damaged sheets that we took down. And I bought a little drywall handsaw, which was only $4.99 at Home Hardware. Now we are left trying to figure out how to do it. Measure twice, cut once. Instead I measured three times - but it still didn't work out the first time. We tackled the large sheet that goes around all the plumbing pipes first. It was definitely the hardest and made the other rectangular pieces seem easy. But tonight we must cut out the drywall on the exterior wall, replace the perforated vapour barrier and then replace the drywall with a few smooth sheets. (Oh yes, and install the electrical box for the rangehood microwave and move the rangehood vent by 1/4". Installing the bloody rangehood is another adventure that I wasn't expecting!)

Putting up the wallboard is one thing, but what about taping & mudding? People talk about it and I just go along with them, like I know what they are talking about. I've used plyfiller, but not mud. The aforementioned friend Matthew has offered up some leftover tape & mud, so we are doing very well in the material cost of this part of the project. But technique, we're just making that up as we go along. Fortunately, all this drywall will be hidden by new backsplash tiles and cabinets, so it doesn't need to have a perfect finish. I guess that what I should be worrying about more is how to install cabinets and tiles. But, that is a worry for another day.