Okay, so NOW we're back.

All right, all right. You can all just pipe the hell down now - here's your stinking update.

Despite the lack of bloggage lately, we have been making progress. Well, okay, WE haven't been making much progress, but our drywall guy's a freakin' machine. If only the damn mud didn't have to dry between coats...

So, the last post of any substance involved clearing out the scrap drywall and doing a little prep work for Tony the Drywall Guy. Well, needless to say, between the time we originally contacted him (before we went to Australia) and the time we called him back to start the job, he'd forgotten who we were and where we lived. Fortunately, he was still willing to do the work.

And wow, what great work this guy does! Here's a little "time lapse" slide show of the past four weeks:

Round One:





Including all his prep time, that took him about five hours. We would have considered ourselves lucky to do that much in five WEEKS.

Round Two:





All that took him about three-and-a-half hours. Yeah. He showed up at 4:30 and he was gone by 7:00. No shit.

Round Three:





That was about another three-and-a-half hours. And that was it. He was finished the job. Oh, of course, he also mudded up the big piece we put in the upstairs hallway:



And, thanks to him, we didn't have to worry about overlapping the drywall and the shower edge, or using a ridiculous amount of caulking.

Before:


After the first coat:


I'd tell you what we paid him, but you wouldn't believe me. Hell, I still hardly believe it. Seriously, he was that cheap. Hell, I would gladly have paid him FOUR TIMES what the final bill was, just to avoid having to do all that ourselves. And there's no way we could have done anywhere near as nice a job. Anyone need a mudder? Cause we know the best one in town, no fooling.

Of course, now that he's officially done, we no longer have any excuse to avoid getting back to work. And after drywall, the next step is...

Well, see for yourself:



We spent the long weekend working our way through that five-gallon bucket of drywall sealer/primer. Yeah. Five gallons of it.

Two coats.

On everything.




Good times, good times.