Sunday, January 27, 2008

A little less insulation, a little more drywall

Well, we passed another inspection. He didn't really have any comments, once I pointed out that we weren't actually planning to put up any vapor barrier, thanks to the rigid insulation we had so carefully attached to the concrete.

Two-for-two! Whooo!

The bad news was that, since we passed the inspection, we could start drywalling.

Ugh.

I don't enjoy drywalling very much, to tell you the truth. Hell, I don't think DRYWALLERS enjoy drywalling. It's finicky, repetitive, labor-intensive, involves large, unwieldy, and heavy pieces of drywall - oh, and it's freaking dusty, too.

There IS a good side to drywalling, though: it's not insulating. And we get to start actually covering things up, too. This means the end is in sight! All that's left is mudding and sanding the drywall (over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over), installing the doors, painting, installing the bathroom fixture, carpeting, flooring, more painting, and then trim and... then we're done. So, yeah.

June? Maybe?

But you didn't come here to hear me whinge (and if you did, don't admit it - seriously), so on with the pictures!

First thing yesterday morning I hied my ass down to the tool rental place and picked up one of these:



Let me tell you, that thing was worth every penny of the $28.50 per day or whatever it is we paid. I have no idea how people manage to drywall without one, to be honest. Unless they have a crew of five, that is...

At any rate, after some organizing and futzing and general dilly-dallying, we put up the very first piece of drywall in the basement:



Six hours later, when we finally quit for the day, we'd done one side of the office ceiling:





Yes, that really did take us that long. (Okay, we stopped for lunch.) But it was right back at this morning, and I'm happy to say we managed to finish the entire ceiling in the office. Here's what it would look like if you lay down on the floor (as if, for instance, you'd spent two days drywalling and were really tired) and looked up:



Oooh, dots! Pretty!

Sadly, we didn't get the bathroom ceiling done, largely because it was 6:30 and the War Department had had enough, but we're hoping to get that wrapped up this week - and then I'll have more pictures!

3 comments:

Heather MacLeod said...

Nice work guys! I can sympathize with the sanding and sanding and sanding and sanding and sanding...I slathered on 30 kgs of mud on my kitchen walls and sanded about 10 kg's off. You absolutely HAVE to get a corner (inside and out) tool (http://www.hardwarestore.com/media/product/221374_front200.jpg). Mine was plastic, and I only had an inside corner version, but it was AWESOME. I didn't even have to put up a crown the ceiling "corners" were so good! Unfortunately, I have about 3-5 kgs of mud to slather on my backsplash before I can tile it. My last bit of advice is the type of mud you get and STIR STIR STIR lest you have a bunch of bubbles you expose (turn into craters) when you sand over them.

Sue said...

Hey guys, I'm a friend of Clamb & Heidi's ... we just moved to a house over on Wilkinson Road and I had the brilliant idea that I was going to finish the basement of this place (which is a rental) so I could put my office down there. And then Clamb gave me your website address, which is a very very very good thing because reading your whole saga (which took me about 2 hours) has saved me from probably 200 hours of agony, which would be completely useless to me in two years when we move out of this place and buy our own little hellhole to renovate.

I may however still use the rfoil (awesome of you to mention that stuff) to put down something on the basement floor, and then Heidi has cautiously ventured the opinion that she MIGHT, just MIGHT, have some time to help me with some electrical. And I'll leave it at that...

Awesome blog... can't wait to meet you two.

Anonymous said...

Hey Heather - we're actually leaning towards hiring somebody to do the mudding and sanding for us. We just don't have the energy or wherewithal to do it ourselves, and it would look like crap if we did! :o)

Susan, if nothing else good comes of this renovation aside from knowing that we've prevented someone else from trying it, I'll be happy. Well, actually, if that was the ONLY good thing that came out of this renovation, I'd be pretty pissed off. Ha! But you're welcome to come over and take a guided tour any time. :o)