| August 18, 2003
We compared prices of insulating ourselves and contracting it out, and
it was only about a $100 difference. The contractors get such a
discount on material, it almost pays for their labor, so I had them do it
and also blow in the ceiling. However, at the last minute, we
decided to insulate all the inside walls also for sound deadening
purposes. |
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| Every little crack and cranny is filled with insulation, and
the holes where wires and pipes come into the walls are filled with
expanding foam. It was hot and itchy work, and we're both glad we
don't do it for a living. |
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I walked into the house in the early morning darkness, and tripped and
fell on a 2' high pile of drywall in the kitchen. Drywall is the one
thing I subbed out, and I was glad when I saw the guys moving a stack of
5/8" by 12' long by 7' high drywall into the house. I can't
even barely lift one of the sheets myself, much less hang it on the
ceiling!
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| We've been accustomed to glacially slow, almost imperceptible
progress, and so it is quite a shock to walk in in the afternoon and have
all the ceilings drywalled. It's like having little elves come and
do the work during the night. By the next two days, all the walls
were hung also. It would have taken me a month of hard labor, and
would not turn out nearly so nice. |
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| To save costs, I told the drywallers that I would haul out
the scraps and clean up as they drywalled, and so I ordered yet ANOTHER
dumpster, and managed to fill it with junk that was left in the yard and
tree branches. I'm getting really tired of filling these things.
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| Sensing some discontent within the ranks of my
manual laborers (my wife and mother in law), I put aside my slave-driver
attitude for an afternoon in order to do something fun for a change.
We went to Disney's Grand
Californian Hotel in Anaheim. Big Mistake. My wife got lots of
ideas, all expensive. The hotel is extremely well done, and the
attention to detail is surprising on such a scale. It is right next
to Downtown Disney, and worth the trip, and is FREE if you park less
than three hours. I saw a couple guys with sketch pads drawing
details, so we were not the only people there to get ideas.
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| The tapers came and taped the first coat. They do it
by machine, which is ten times faster than me doing it by hand. It's
starting to look like a house inside! |
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| 8/31/03
It's snowing in the attic! The insulators blew in a fluffy white
coat of fiberglass insulation. The stuff is weird- really soft,
almost like cotton, and really light. Made a blizzard the first time
I turned the house fan on. |
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| The drywall is all done, and ready for the finish
carpentry. Since we're not using texture, I have to spot-sand and
float some areas that would ordinarily be covered up with texture. |
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| Labor Day, 2003
We have a finished surface! We tiled the floor in the powder
bathroom. The walls will get tile and beadboard (on
order). |
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