Day Twenty Three

What a change a day can make. They got 95% of the sheetrock up and have only the bathroom and storage closet to do. They'll finish it on Monday and then begin taping. The taping and mudding is expected to take about 4 days. Dick has been hanging sheetrock for I think most of his adult life. Here he is setting in one of the arches. To get it to bend into shape he set the piece out on the driveway in the rain to soften it and then set it aside for a couple hours before putting it in place.

All that remained was a pile of debris which I got rid of after everyone went home. It's looking so nice down there now that you can walk through the rooms and get a feel for their size.

Hopefully the sauna will come next week and that can go in. I think Dan expected it to be here by now.

Day Twenty Two

Well whatdya know...we passed our electrical inspection this morning. We also passed the mechanical inspection and were given the green light to begin sheetrocking. Watch closely and see if you agree that it appears Dan and Dick are rehearsing for a spot in the Village People's new lineup...Roll the video. Okay, I was exaggerating there but I couldn't help but notice the choreographed moves. They got the rooms 'capped' (ceiling's done) today and will finish the walls tomorrow. Taping will be a four day project and then Tammy and I get to step up and show our stuff with paint brushes and rollers.

Having the ceiling's drywalled gives the ceiling a much higher appearance. It's very noticeable how the acoustics are changing daily in the rooms. It seems your voice doesn't carry at all like it used to when it was wide open. Tammy mentioned to me that Dan told her it's best to not sweep the floors in the basement until the taping is done. It may get a little messy over the next few days but the added sheetrock dust on the floor helps make cleanup of dripped and splatted mud easier to do. It's sort of like adding flour to a cookie sheet before putting down the doe.

Dan, John and I had some serious discussions today about grocery shopping among other things. Did you know that it's much cheaper to buy cereal in the bags rather than boxes? The bags are resealable so there's no need to have a Tupper Ware container at the ready when you break them open. It's nice to know that we grown up men haven't lost our taste for good wholesome cereal like Cocoa Puffs and Capn Crunch...the stuff strong bodies are made of.

There's a reason our freezer has been sitting out in the open for the past several days. Anybody care to hazard a guess? Here's a clue.

Day Twenty One

Dan and John spent today installing the heated floor coils in the bathroom. The thought crossed my mind before we ever started the project that it would be nice to have a heated floor in the bathroom but it wasn't until Dan mentioned it that I said anything about it. I know my Finnish ancestors were known to step from their saunas and jump into ice cold waters through holes they'd cut in the ice but we're a different breed today. We like to step from our saunas onto nicely warmed ceramic tile so as not to shock our systems too much. Once the heat coils were installed they poured a self leveling cement compound over the entire floor. It goes on very wet but by tomorrow it should be just about ready for traffic.

The beautiful job John did yesterday of installing the 8 way cable splitter/amplifier was all for naught. The cable guy came today and he said there was too much amplification coming from it and that it would have to be taken out. Our signal had some interference yesterday and we thought maybe it was the wet weather and the outside connection. It appears our signal is just fine coming into the house. Before he left he changed out all the cable ends and put in some new splices for us. The TV picture looks good now and hopefully when the two extra TVs go online it will still be just as fine.

Before Dan left, he and Tammy reinstalled the seat cover in his truck. It's not perfect but it's a whole lot better than it was and hopefully the new fix will keep it from ripping any further.

We got in two of the three pendant lamps we ordered. The last one won't arrive for a few weeks as it's on back order. In the photo they look to be different sizes but they're the same. They'll hang above the bar.

The electrical inspector returns tomorrow morning and we'll also have the mechanical inspection done after he's finished. Providing we pass both of those checks they'll begin putting up sheetrock tomorrow. The plan was for us to be able to paint over Thanksgiving weekend but I don't think that's going to be possible. I told Dan that if we didn't make our 3rd week in December finish date it was okay as we don't have anything planned as far as hosting any family get-togethers. If we don't finish until after the new year that's okay.

Day Twenty

This morning got off to a hectic start for Tammy as she had just gotten out of the shower and was trying to get coffee on while a neighbor was phoning, concerned that there was a truck with a load of sheetrock outside our house. Tammy figured she should back her car out of the garage in case the guys wanted to offload through there. She went to back her car out of the garage to make room for them to offload the sheetrock but in the process she forgot to close her car door and it caught on the side of the garage and pushed her car door out of whack. She phoned me at work to see if I knew how to reach Dan and to tell me about the car. I could tell she was feeling stressed but I was just going into the sector and she would have to wait until I was on break in an hour or so. I gave her Dan's celphone but she wasn't able to reach him. When I got on break I phoned her and found that the house alarm was now going off and it couldn't be silenced. I took the rest of the day off to see if I could help calm the waters at home.

I got home a little before 10:00 and checked out the car. You could see where the top of the door was bowed out and it no longer seated flush. I met Tammy inside and I could tell right away that she was in need of a hug. She had a few tears and she was very embarrassed. I told her about a friend at work who did a very similar thing except he caught his door on a tree. Dan sent me to Apple Valley Collision where they had me in and out in 10 minutes. They had a few guys in back push the bowed part back into place and unless you look closely it's pretty hard to tell. I tried to pay them but they said not to bother. I made sure they knew that Dan sent me and I headed home to try and relieve Tammy's worries. There's a bit of an air leak now and you have to use a bit more force when closing the door but other than that it's okay.

It's time for some humor before I go any further. Turn up your speakers and click here.

I arrived home to find a crew of guys offloading sheetrock through the front door and into the basement. Dan uses two different thickness of sheetrock. He uses the normal thickness in the walls but beefs up the ceilings by using 5/8 so it helps reduce noise between the upper and lower levels. Dan and John finished insulating the ceiling and then worked on hooking up the cable tv wires and the new 8 way amplified splitter I bought. Toby and Allie watched. They got it all hooked up only to find that the reception was a bit sucky. We figured it was the damp air and a bad splice at the cable box outside. I've got Charter Cable coming out tomorrow to redo the splice with one which is meant for the outdoors as the one that's in there now isn't.

Dan mentioned to Tammy that he's got a rip in the upholstery of his truck and wondered if she has any experience fixing something like that. We went out to take a look at it and decided what the heck...let's give it a go. I think we can fix that...with stress being put on the word 'think'. No guarantees here. We went out and got one of those leather/vinyl repair kits and brought the seat cover downstairs to put some light on it. As of this writing we've completed 4 of 9 steps and we should know in a couple hours if the project was a success of a bitter failure.

I scanned some photos of the laminate samples we picked out last weekend. Here's a sample of the counter tops we'll be using in the kitchenette, bar and the bar top on the half wall. Keith didn't have an extra sample of the laminate we picked out for the bathroom but it's kinda cool...it's got a very subtle fallen leaf pattern on it. We found this sample in Keith's laminate selection which very closely resembles the hardwood floors which will be going in Rachel's dance room.

We're still waiting while the electrical inspector lords his power over us. We need him back for a quick 2 minute inspection but he's still apparently upset that we missed our initial appointment with him yesterday and we are going to pay and pay and pay...sir, yes sir! We were hoping to begin rocking the project tomorrow but now it won't be till sometime Thursday at the earliest..after the re-inspection. I suppose the lull gives Dan and John time to do some putzy stuff such as the central vac hookup which they've got planned for tomorrow...and a bit more time to play with the pups.

Day Nineteen

After a false start early on we were able to get the electrical work inspected just before noon. The inspector found a few small items which amounted to about 30 minutes of work but he then told Dan that he wouldn't be able to return to do the reinspection until Thursday. It's hard to imagine that the inspector couldn't find two minutes out his schedule between now and Thursday to sign off on the work so the drywall can go up beginning Wednesday. Dan will call the city in the morning and see if there is any way to get him back sooner.

The insulation went up and it made the basement a whole lot quieter, not to mention it gave it a much different look. You can more easily see the outline of the rooms.

Over the weekend, Tammy and I went to Keith's shop and picked out a couple laminates to use for counter tops. We went to Menards and picked out a small refrigerator to go under the counter in the kitchenette. We also bought a a sink for the bathroom and ordered one for the kitchenette. There aren't a whole lot of decisions left for us to make aside from the stained glass we're going to use in the cabinets. It's all just a matter of watching it come together at this point.