Procrastinet

"Towards a 2BR" Part IX: My Name Is Mud

filed under: Demolishments and Renewvations

Previously: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII

I'm no longer talking about a timetable. Forget I ever said anything about a timetable. I am perfectly comfortable sleeping on a couch, and our basement is cool and (now) dry, and the bedrooms will be finished when the bedrooms are finished.

Good?

Good.

Day 21, Friday: Our bedroom door installed, along with the last scraps of drywall around the foyer. The door installation went swimmingly, with the slight exception of the strike plate having to be lowered a smidge for the door to latch. The door opens and closes so smoothly and snugly that I lose a good deal of time because I have to stop and pat myself on the back every time I go through it.

The completed foyer.

(The strangely shaped thingummy that looks like a tiny snowboard in the foyer? That's a 50" wingspan glider which I bought at Costco FOR MAX. It's FOR MAX. I don't know why anyone would suggest otherwise. I mean, he didn't ask for it, or anything. Nor does he seem to understand what it is - YET. Not until we get it up and gliding at the park! What fun I'll he'll have then!)

Day 22, Saturday: Insulated the back wall. A joke: "Who's got two thumbs and would spend $37.95 extra to use styrofoam insulation rather than cut fiberglass into a dozen eleven-foot-long strips? THIS GUY!"

Anyway, it's such a pretty blue...

Plus the room was covered in a fetching drift of styrofoam shavings afterwards:

Christmas in July!

More after the jump...

Rounded out the day by drywalling the back wall and patching a bunch of the random holes - the ceiling around the fan mount, the walls around the switch box, etc.

Annoyingly, the whole wall where the closet used to be took a little over an hour to drywall - despite having irregular side cuts to deal with, and part of it being 11 feet in the air. The rest of the drywall patching, around the switchboxes and wall sconce boxes and ceiling fans? The whole rest of the day, and the next morning. Easily another five hours.

I'm all about visible results. It was, therefor, unspeakably frustrating to spend a bit over an hour doing something that made such a dramatic difference and then spend five+ hours doing something that Lisa didn't even notice until I pointed it out to her. Blah.

Little Fiddly Shit = Bane of My Existence

I did get a nice visit from The Inspector Of Buildings of My Own Woom:

Der Shirtless Kommandant

Day 23, Sunday: Finally, finally (finally) finished all the little dribs and drabs of drywalling and patching. Only a day (or, by the earlier schedule, a week and a day) behind schedule, which is why I'm no longer speaking of timetables thank you very much weren't you listening when I said so well why do you keep bringing it up then?!

Had a bit of help with the last patch, up on the ceiling in our room where the ceiling fan/ceiling sconce cables got passed through:

Me: Okay, buddy, it's five by five and five-eighths. Got it?

Max: Five! Eight! Five!

Max enjoyed the height very much, unfortunately meaning that he spent the rest of the day trying to climb the ladder. I was working on the ceiling in his room later when he came in, shut the door on Lisa, and announced loudly "I CLIMBING LADDER!"

Cleaned up the remnants of the drywall work, and broke for lunch. Upon my return, I discovered that the unused stud and heater supplies I had been keeping against the wall had been HIDING ANOTHER HOLE IN THE DRYWALL TO PATCH. Sigh. Only took about fifteen minutes, but almost made me terminally cranky.

Installed shiny shiny corner bead, which made the closet look like a cheap car someone tricked out in chrome stick-ons:

Pimp My Renovation

Began the taping/mudding. Here's my going theory: at every stage of construction, you can put off making it look really good until a later stage. Framing has to be square and true, but drywalling? Fix it with plaster. First coat of tape/mud? Sand it, fix it with the second coat. Second coat? Sand it, fix it with the third. Third coat? Sand it, fix it with paint (this last is an illusion, as the slightest irregularity in plastering shows right through any number of coats of paint).

It's like in music recording, when the engineer promises to "fix it in the mix," or in film/tv where someone's going to "fix it in post."

So: I didn't tape and mud sloppily. I'm just going to fix it in post.

My going theory will be put to the test tonight, when I see how much of a pain in the ass the sanding/second coating is. In the basement, I spent a LOT of time and heartache getting each coat of mud smooth and even and ridge-free. By the end of the process I was thinking that was a fool's errand and I should have just sanded more. We'll see how that plays out.

I'm in the closet.

"I go see Daddy! I climbing ladder!"

Not SO sure he wanted to be up here after all

Come on, sandpaper, do your stuff!

Posted by rjt at July 18, 2005 03:31 PM