Walled in!

Sheet Rock’s Fun!

Pritz-Made saw horses

Lots of fun corners

Thomas insulating an outside wall

The Pink Panther Was Here

A beautiful sight

Soffit, soffit, who’s got a soffit?

A little spackle here, a little spackle there

Brian

Thomas and Brian

Thomas with mud

Brian the Giant

Who’s Brian?

We met Brian through our friends Greg and Palmer at the beginning of the year. (you might remember me mentioning my christmas wish coming true? Turns out my christmas wish is about 6′2″ with dreads, a love of travel, countless stories, some bold body art, and a love of hobo music.
He stayed with us for two weeks, working with us putting up all of the sheet rock downstairs.

He’s since moved on, but we’ll never forget him. . .oh dang!

(was that enough of a Ta-dow! Brian?)

Keepin’ it Clean

 

One of our Field of Despair finds

 

Around the time we were having Dead Tree taken down, we built our laundry room.
My mom and dad gave me a wonderful washer and dryer for christmas, and we had our work cut out for us before they could be anything but art!
They’re quite lovely – front loading, stacked and, well, awesome!  I can’t say thank you to them enough (mom and dad – I’m not sure the machines are sentient. They do sing though. Nothing too complex, but they’re young)

Have I mentioned that part of the reason I’ve not been updating this often is that I’ve been working. . .a lot? I think it’s made me even more giddy than normal.

Ok, so. . .Easterwood and Thomas put in the plumbing for our washer and a utility sink. Thomas and his dad moved a pole that was in the middle of the room, put in a tile floor and scooted our water heater further into the corner.
Then we put up sheetrock on one wall and painted the entire room.
Then it was time to put in the washer and dryer!

oh, wait. Then we moved the water heater back in place and found that it didn’t care for that and died. So off to Home Depot for a new one.

Then it’s time to put in the washer and dryer.

Oh, wait – I forgot about putting in the plug for the dryer. More Home Depot trips for that.

Now! Putting in the washer and dryer. I think that was it.
We’ll, except that the dryer didn’t work. But eventually we got Sears to bring us a new one and take away the defective one. After many, many phone calls, a few visits, and a bunch of parts. But they did bring that new one at 8am on a Sunday morning. . .And it works like a dream.

It’s getting nicer and nicer to do the laundry too, the further we get with the work downstairs. The warmer weather helps too. We got the new(er) dryer about a week after the new year. 

I threw in some shots of the wood chipper the tree guys brought with them – it’s still there now. Thomas spoke to a couple who are supposed to be closing on the house next door, but we’ll see. I wonder if they’ve noticed the big red monster in the back yard. . .

One of our Field of Despair finds

Our New Neighbor

Mr. Chipper

just, wow.

Happy Wall and Plumbing

Mud, Mud, Mud

Our Utility Sink

Faucet!

Merry Christmas!

Doing our first load of laundry

Small space, tons of cleaning potential!

Happy New Year!

My christmas wish was answered!
We have ceilings and walls. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am about this. Dance around the room, howl at the moon happy.
(way happier than some tiny cup of yogurt could make me – but, still a good ad campaign)

did you get that?

WE HAVE CEILINGS AND WALLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have pictures of everything and stories to tell, but my cameras downstairs at Butters and I’m at Kelli’s house about to go to bed. But it’s been so long since I’ve posted anything that I just couldn’t hold it in any longer.

WALLS!!!!

There’s still a lot of work to do – little bits of sheetrock here and there and ever more mudding and sanding – but we’re getting there.
We even bought our paint today – Lemon Soufflé for the kitchen walls (see my post about our test kitchen) and Parmesan for the walls in our living room and dining room.
Is it really that surprising that we picked food colors? And we weren’t even hungry!
We almost went all desserts, with crème brulée, but that was a bit dark, and, not illogically, didn’t go well with the soufflé.

See why it’s time for me to go to bed?
I’m a bit giddy. That, and it’s time for me to take some more Emergen-C and slather on more and more lotion on my hands. Sheet rock dust is turning my hands into corn husks. ick.

I promise I’ll post more this week – pictures and pictures and stories. We have a new friend that’s made this all possible and I don’t think I can give him a proper introduction without a photo. Not to worry – I have the perfect one already.

If we only had some walls. . .

 

The beginnings of a ceiling!!!

Last weekend (the one before this one, actually), Greg, Dave and Erin came over to help us start sheet rocking Butters.
It was a full weekend – Thomas and I cleaned out all the floor joists, added plumbing in the kitchen (so we can have an ice maker in our fridge) wiring some more boxes, and finished tearing out the bathroom downstairs on Saturday.
Our awesome friends came over on Sunday and we finished cleaning and taking out even MORE nails (there were a phenomenal number – I’ve been pulling them since we started working on Butters!) and Thomas and Greg worked on framing out our soffit-to-be while Dave, Erin and I worked on starting the sheet rock in the kitchen.

We only have 3/4 of the kitchen ceiling done, but it’s still a big step.
Everyone says that once you get the wall and ceiling in, the rest is much faster.
If nothing else, I know it will make us feel so much better about all we’ve done thus far. It’s a long list, but it’s not very pretty yet, so it gets me down sometimes.

But! It’s coming – there’s a teeny tiny little light way down there – see it? You have to squint a little, but I promise, it’s there! (I hope.)

Before we started cleaning

After Cleaning

Which one would your rather use? Yeah, us too.

Herbie was very full after our night of cleaning!

Greg and Thomas working on the soffit

Thomas and I holding up stuff for the soffit

Still working on the soffit – it’s long!

Dave, Greg and Thomas trimming sheet rock (really, they were awesome!)

Putting up Some Ceiling!!!!

The beginnings of a ceiling!!!

 

Finished Bathroom

While we’d finished the renovation part of the bathroom upstairs, it still didn’t look very user friendly.
Read: I wouldn’t want to take a shower there.

So I fixed that and we have one room that feels like a real room (no strings or anything!)

 

A room! A real room!

 

 

Thomas doesn’t get the idea of having a container for Q-Tips other than the one you buy them in, but he’s learning.

I got the shower curtain(s) and hangers in New Orleans while I lived on Palmyra – so Pavel might even recognize it!