Category: Home Renovations

We had a nice long weekend (well Ryan had to work Sunday and Monday but I had a long weekend!).

By Sunday Morning Ryan had the bathroom cement board just about finished (the window pieces still need to be put in but the walls are ready for just drywall now. Here’s the progress:

Sunday I spackled the final corner coats on the walls and ceiling corners. Then Monday I spent the day sanding the walls. That was a LOT of work and I may have sanded a bit too much but they’re nice and smooth. The ceiling is still lagging behind (needs one coat of spackle on the seams still).

Then Monday night I chose one wall to prime so I could see how the sanding came out. I was concerned that the sanding screens I used were leaving fine lines (directional) from sanding and I wasn’t sure if the primer would cover it or not – luckily it does and the wall came out great! Here is the primed wall:

Tuesday and Wednesday I was SO sore from sanding that no progress has been made since (plus I’m working long hours so I’m not home much) but hopefully this coming weekend we can get the ceiling done so the whole room can be primed.

Progress continues, slowly but surely.

Saturday while I was out, Ryan worked on the bathroom. He got the second wall insulated and most of the cement board up. He’s got 1 more large piece of cement board and some small pieces. Then it’s just the green board to finish. I think that’s a goal for this coming 3 day weekend!

Sunday we figured out the amounts and ordered the tile for the bathroom. We’re using marble tiles:
6×6 on the floor
3×6 up the walls (4 ft high) with a decorative tile design across the top
3×6 up the shower walls to the ceiling (matches the floor)
During the super bowl I spackled the corners in the tvroom. Getting step 1 done on 3 of the 5 inside corners and one side of the outside corner. This is the final coat hopefully!

A little time spent with family, a little time spent with friends and a little (or a lot) of time spent working on the house. That’s usually the way of it 😉

Spackling progress made this weekend:
– spackled the right side of the corners (2nd coat)
– spackled the wall side of the upper corners

Ryan also got some insulation in the bathroom up, that’s going pretty well (one wall almost done!)

What’s left now??
– 1 coat on ceiling screws {done}
– 2 coats on ceiling seams {1 done}
– 1 coat on ceiling side of upper corners {done}
– 1 coat on corners (left and right) {done}
– touch ups and sanding {done on walls/not ceilings}

This weekend we headed back to NY for a friend’s PHD graduation party on Saturday. We got a later start back on Sunday than planned so just relaxed Sunday evening.

Monday however we got some work around the house done. In the morning we taped the upper corners in the tvroom finally so now that entire room as tape up!

Later in the day once it was dry I then spackled the left hand side of all the corners and did the final coat on all the wall seams.

Unfortunately the ceiling is lagging behind because we need either both of us or Ryan to have some time, I can’t do those myself.

We got some fiberglass free insulation for the bathroom walls (sound proofing) today as neither of us were looking forward to cutting and messing with the fiberglass insulation.

This week found us home to work on the house all week and there was plenty to do!

We started by taping the seams in the TV Room and spackling the screws. 

Then we repeated this process on all seams and screws (walls and ceilings).

Then we worked on getting the bathroom ready – some electrical wiring needed to be done.  We purchased sconces for the bathroom vanity lighting and put up boxes for them and wired them.

Next up we worked on putting up hardibacker on the exterior wall of the bath (shower) – this was a VERY slow process since we had a hand tool for scoring the cement board.  By Friday evening the exterior wall was at least completed. – Here’s an in progress picture:

Friday we also taped the corners of the tv room (inside and the one outside corner).

This coming weekend is a family weekend celebrating xmas so no more house work will get done until the following weekend!

What a transformation! My parents came out Friday at 1:30 to be here for the drywall delivery. We did some prep work on the electrical (although I was up until 2am on Thursday night getting things as prepped as I could).

Drywall came around 2:30 and by evening we had the TV Room ceiling and exterior wall done!

Saturday we got up early and by dinner time the TV Room, and Gym were completely drywalled (minus the closet). The ceiling in the bathroom was also done!

Sunday Ryan added extra screws to the ceiling while I tightened all the screws in the walls that needed it. Then we started spackling in the TV Room and taped a few seams. Most of the taping will happen the week after xmas since we are taking it off but it was good to get a feel for what we’re in for!

Pictures:
Tvroom before drywall

Ceiling done:

Tv room after drywall!

Well we’re in prep-for-drywall mode so next on the list was to demo the interior walls adjacent to the walls we’re going to drywall.

We spent saturday morning doing demo, one full truck load of plaster later and we were done. It actually went really fast and wasn’t too messy since it wasn’t plaster and lathe but rather plaster on rockboard.

Then there was some support work that needed to be done in the exposed areas. Ryan went to work on that. We are almost ready for drywall now!

Ryan built this wall around the backside of the diningroom builtins:

Before:

After:

We spent this weekend with some electrical projects. Mostly testing out the wiring that has been done for a while to make sure it was done right.

The first project we did was to install the patch panel that I built in the basement. Then we ran the rest of the cable and ethernet drops to both the tv room and the gym. This actually went pretty quickly with 2 people working on it and I can’t wait for the rest of my patch panel supplies to arrive so I can start putting the wires in for good.

Then it was on to real electrical stuff:
First we we had to wire the feeds into the Circuit Breaker box, this went pretty smoothly and the 3 new feeds were in.
Then I came the trickier part: actually turning on the feeds to test them, there was some prep work first to be done and each circuit was different:
– The outlet circuit in the tv room was tested and worked – I wired a single outlet so we had one in that room and the rest were disconnected after testing.
– The porch outlet circuit – which consists of a single outlet on the porch (which we need for xmas lights) – and then a wire that will lead to a second outlet at some point I currently wired as a light in the back of the basement since we don’t have one there.
– The tv room light circuit – this one was tricky, I wired up light bulbs to each location and then wired in the switches which will have to come back out now to drywall but I wanted them for testing. Then i turned it on and everything worked well except for the 3-way center light that will be a fan and light. I didn’t actually wire this correctly and I’m not worried about it because there was no insulation near by to worry about cut wires or anything.

While I did this Ryan started framing in a section of the tv room that was previously not square. The built-in from the diningroom was going to cause us problems so we decided to build a wall behind it to drywall against. We lose a few inches of space but gain a nice square corner. Unfortunately we ran out of wood so this project is not yet complete 🙂

In progress wall:

Sunday we made a trip to Lowes to get a programmable thermostat which I later installed (hopefully to save a bit on oil this winter). Then I spent time researching the problem I’m having with my car (ignition control module we think). I ordered the parts I need for that repair. Honestly I don’t know where the rest of the weekend went! I know I spent a couple hours doing some cooking and baking for a work holiday event but it sure seems like a short day!

We spent Saturday working on my car (by we I mean, Ryan, my Uncle and I, hey I changed my oil!). My car now has brand spanking new brakes and rotors, a flushed out heater core (I swear heat was blowing out!) however it now sputters. So new sparkplugs are on order and we’re currently not driving my car 🙂

Anyhoo. We spent the rest of the weekend on the house. I finished the electrical for the tvroom lights (recessed and others). We ran speaker wire for the 4 back speakers in the tv room. We pulled up the oak flooring in the tvroom so it can be replaced with maple (it was running the wrong direction too). Ryan framed out the wall in front of what used to be a chimney. I made the board for the patch panel in the basement (cutting lots of holes).

Where we’re at now:
– Ceilings are completely prepped for drywall at this point.
– TVRoom: 3 of the 4 walls are ready for drywall
– Need to demo the 4th wall before drywall and run some last wiring (cable drops and outlets on 4th wall) [cable drops done on 12/5, demo done 12/12]
– Gym: 2 of the 4 walls are ready for drywall
– Need to install speaker wire and outlets on 1 of the walls [done]
– Need to install 2 cable drops [done 12/5]
– Need to demo the last wall before drywall [done 12/12]
– Bathroom: Has some work left – can be drywalled just about if we didn’t put up the rockboard entirely
– Need to caulk plumbing [done]
– Need to run electrical (except for ceiling fan which is wired) [done]
– Need to insulate walls (for sound) once other sides are drywalled

Pretty exciting! I got info on the drywall (priced it out and figured out lead time). I’ll order that next week as well as all the other supplies on the list of drywalling “stuff” 🙂