Well, as February carries us closer to the ever elusive Spring, our spirits are bolstered by some fairly serious progress towards civility. Jeremy took a long and probably arduous trip to Edmonton at the end of January to pick up the second half of our kitchen cabinets. Where upon he was also under instruction to pick-up (if he could...) a door, lights, tile, and all sorts of hoopla. With many phone calls and photo e-mails and about 16 hours of shopping he made it home with all the essentials... he managed to cram 1500lbs of tile into the back seat of his truck!
I am very impressed by his tenacity, as I could only have handled about 3 hours at most. Thanks to Jeremy's cousin's hubby Rob in Edmonton for being an awesome interior-decorating wingman, hanging out in Tile and Lighting stores with Jeremy for an entire (very long) Saturday!
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I know I have been more than vocal about my kitchen floors (it still hurts). Cutting them out was extremely hard, I have trouble envisioning the completed project without them.
Unbelievable, that this is only one area.
It has taken us so long to get up to the resurfacing of the renovation because of all the things that go on behind the scenes, or walls in this case. Things like puzzling through the literal rats nest of wires that existed in the basement. To properly give an idea of what I'm talking about, imagine NEVER tripping a breaker when the fridge, microwave, toaster, and truck block heater (at -40C) are all on the same circuit. A disaster waiting to happen indeed.
Jeremy, with his OCD in overdrive, has remedied the situation, rewiring the entire house and bringing it into the proper century and up to code to boot.
In Progress...
I have been desperately trying to get the drywall done (motivation being my biggest opponent), and with Jeremy at my back the entire time asking if I'm done yet it has been a rough go. Luckily my mother came for a visit and helped to drive the project forward... until we had a beer or two.... Oh well, I don't get to see her enough as it is, so to hell with renos for a while. Life can't come to a halt... well, a complete halt anyhow. We did end up getting the drywall sanding done, yelling across the house with the shop vac going. A good visit all in all.
Under the disaster of a hardwood floor there was shiplap. More than enough strength to support my new beautiful tiles, once Jeremy glues and screws a plywood subfloor on to it. I am really happy with the huge variation in the tiles and I think the cupboards are going to work really well.
So:
Complete Painting (pick a colour... Ugh)
Lay Tile and Grout
Build Cabinets
Install Cabinets
All the other little crap in between.
Photo just doesn't do them justice...
So that is were we stand with all of our excuses. Ever re-frame an entire wall to move a door over by one inch?... Its ridiculous and oh so vital. Crawl into a space where no human should go to pass wires through a tiny hole you can't really see? Cry with a prybar and a hammer in your hand (don't answer that)? But as the days get longer we get more and more done. Its only a matter of time (4 weeks) before.... well who knows.
It has been a long time since I have done a post. However this doesn't mean that progress has stopped. The jigsaw is coming together in exactly (pretty much) the way we planned.
As previously viewed this room looked a little like a patchwork quilt of massive (and rigid) proportions. I'm proud to introduce you to Payton's Room 2.0. Basically all that is left here is window trim, carpet, baseboards, and a stained piece of wood over that 'woohoo' in the wall over there (completely planned, and impeccably executed... or at least that's how it appears in the photo).
Check out that ceiling, nightmares have spawned from less. I can safely say that I will never do that kind of 'funkyness' again (who am I kidding I'm a drywall masochist).
Jordan's room has undergone an almost herculean transformation of similar proportions. Less bull shit corners allowed us to move a little faster. Both kids got to pick the colours for their rooms. Jordan picked this green because she loves wild cats, and they live in jungles ("and stuff"). Payton loves whales so hence the blue for the ocean.
Common Room at the top of the stairs.
As per our standing marriage agreement, there is no such thing as down time:
"What the hell are you doing, you don't need to sit to eat! Eat on your way up the stairs! I don't care if it's spaghetti I didn't sit down to cook it!"
Or:
"Follow mommy as you do your homework, no I can't look now, just sound it out again. Oh spelling, well can you spell... mud, how about hammer, drill, level... Oh you have a list... go ask your sister."
Bathroom in progress.
All joking (or slightly abusive humor) aside, we are still moving forward. Although this particular project in the house has been one headache after another (all renovations really), I love the retro-fit feel of the space we are creating. Its cool. I am however slightly appalled at the amount of wasted drywall. Every piece in the entire attic has been cut (hence the play on jigsaw, just in case you didn't get it).
I'm apprehensive to announce a finish date for this attic, but if I had to guesstimate I would say December 14th. I think I just shot myself in the foot. I'll go bandage my wounds with some drywall tape and get back to work.
Incase you don't want to read about all the shenanigans or for a recap, or just to hear my melodious voice laughing at myself just watch the video instead.
Fall is upon us and here in Saskatchewan that means harvest time. Jeremy is working long hours at the shop, doing his part to keep those combines combining.... Anyhow with fall came the realization that the weird tree up front of the house wasn't an apple tree but a plum tree. The poor tree was in dire need of a serious trim so I took an afternoon and started hacking away. After an hour or so of consistent swearing and a hundred little tiny scratches that are like burning needles of damnation later on in the shower. I found the tree.
After
What a cool looking trunk this tree has. I have never really lived anywhere where fruit trees grow (except apples). I'm super excited to put the hose to this tree in the spring and hopefully help it come back to life in an awesome, sweet, juicy way.
Before
Life, as always is super frustrating. But I think the worst frustration is having everything we need to move forward (drywall, windows, wire...) yet having no time to accomplish the projects. That being said we have been able to carve out some progress on the attic renovation. Firstly was an excess of silly little bits and bobs that needed to be done. Things like one more piece of insulation here, or to tie in that last outlet into the circuit. We have finished all those frustrating little things that had stymied so much of our ambition.
We decided to take on Payton's room with a all out, hell bent, get er' done attitude... So we put in a new window, and had a beer, taped some seems, and had a beer, mulled over this and that, and had a beer...
After
Then we finally got down to business.
dresser cubby
Things you forget to remember about Drywall:
It sucks
You can't fix 'everything' with mud
Get all your tools... yes all, you will need them in 2 minutes
Watch that YouTube video again
It sucks
Nothing will ever be square or straight so get over it
So that is Payton's room all taped. There is still an excess amount of mudding and sanding that needs to go into the room before paint but here we go again.
Another happy fall thought is the thought of school! Whoo Hoo, game on drywall. Both kids are in school full time this year (Grade 1 and Grade 2).
They had a good summer of spear making, skinny dipping, and bike riding.
I have one final thing I would like to share a video I took for my Aunty Kim who asked me to show her where I lived.
Well I believe I will open this blog post as most Canadian blog posts have been opened for the past month... Can you believe this Spring? I haven't updated the blog in a month mostly due to some spring blues.
Anyhow the snow is mostly gone and the weather is looking warmer (finally). I have been working my tail off trying to force my way through the onerous steps of mudding drywall. It's been a learning curve but I'm more than capable of mudding/taping/sanding the next building.... Although the thought makes me want to cut off my hands. It's done. I will never have to work on drywall in this studio ever again!
Today Jeremy and I started the priming. He's all back on board... I could go into a wifely tale of abandonment and how a woman is the center of the universe, but Jeremy did work on the studio with no insulation or heat all winter... So I'll hold my tongue. We had to rent some scaffold to reach the vaulted ceiling in the main room. While we had the scaffold we (I) decided to get all the tapping/mudding/sanding/repeat/primer/paint and finally the fan hung. Jeremy put the fan up. Priming was fun (sarcasm). Jeremy and I had an on going conversation.
A: "This looks good, do you think it really needs a second coat of primer?"
B: "Well, we should do it right the first time"
Basically every 20 minutes or so we would have this conversation, switching back and forth being Mike Homes.
All drywall aside, it's time to pick out colours! *smack self in head* I really don't like this part. Every time I figure it's going to be awesome to get the colours picked out... but then it snowballs into a second guessing, back and fourth nightmare. Honestly I know exactly what I want, kind of. I need a creative, down to earth, soothing, inspiring, energetic, grown-up, playful, comfortable, place to sew. See easy, lime green... Obviously. I have known pretty much since the beginning that the main colour in the studio had to be lime green. So why am I second guessing that decision? I mean I second guess other decisions all the time (marriage, kids, Saskatchewan), but this one I was sure of. Anyhow as I stare at the computer my mind is changing it's self again so here is the photo of the colours I have picked out.
I have every single paint chip off the rack... seriously like 400 of them and I went through each one, one by one. I totally hate all these colours now... Maybe I should just go paint it orange tomorrow.
Here's Jeremy making fun of my DIY stirstick. I like to stir in comfort, that means with a handful of stick, not 3 measly inches.
Well with paint being a hypothetical done deal in a couple days it's time to turn the think tanks on to flooring. Jeremy informed me that my one and only option is laminate, since he built everything with the mantra "laminate can fix that" in mind. I'm fine with this (although I pretended not to be at first just to see how our marriage was doing, we're still good). Anyhow with this decision made I was sent to take some actual measurements. We had already crunched the guesstimate numbers but we needed something more concrete to go on. Turns out or cleverly named Renovation 600: The Studio was perhaps an exaggeration... by about 200 square feet. Yea, 412 square feet... hmmmm, it seamed so much bigger, but than again I'm short. So I could either mourn the loss of 200 square feet or rejoice in my much reduced flooring estimate, I'm still on the fence on this one.
Here is most recent video of the Studio. I apologize for my carrying on over the corners, but there ARE a lot of corners.
So with Spring in full force and Summer around the corner (fingers crossed eh!), Jeremy and I have been talking about nothing but our impending move... That's right we are moving into this studio. We plan to begin massive renovations at the house in July. I'm so far ahead of myself I'm in the wrong darn race. The projects for the studio go as thus:
Finish paint
Fix hatch to creepy crawl space
Install rough pluming and hook up hot water tank ("before there are too many spiders" -Jeremy)
Flooring (laminate, same throughout)
Paint and clean windows doors
Trim
Fix all the "I'll get that later" stuff.
Deadline: July. OK. Please send all alcoholic donations to:
Crazy Lady and Husband
1234 Middle of Nowhere, Saskatchewan
Canada.
My moment has come. It's my turn to take over the forward momentum of the Studio. Mudding and taping the drywall is the first thing on my list. I would like to bring an important fact to light, I have very little experience when it comes to mudding and taping. But with practice comes competence There are different types of tape, tools, and techniques used by both professionals and 'Do-It-Yourselfers". After a quite a few hours of frustration and YouTube interruptions I can confidently say I don't entirely suck at mudding and taping.
On that note by the time I'm finished with this building I may consider a career change... no I won't, whoever does this for a living is insane.
In quilting we call this a 'Y' seam. In drywall we call it another &$#@ing corner. But I have persevered so far, and I find the swearing has dropped from constant irrational streaming to a calm repetitive s-word every 3 feet.
As I may have mentioned before this is my favorite part of the studio, it is the front door area... what I have yet to mention was the difficulty I had in achieving such a nice seamless taping job here. I would love to go into long fault finding explanations about my husbands poor job of hanging drywall but in all reality it isn't entirely his fault (plus did you see the bubbles in that photo above, I really can't complain too much). I swear the building is twisted, not crooked but twisted (must have been why we liked it at first).
Figure 1.0
This was only the beginning of the taping torture. May I present Figure 1.0, or otherwise known as 'No, I want to keep the post, it's pretty' or 'Why did we keep this stupid... beep, beep, post!'. I know it should come to no ones surprise that we failed to spring for the metal corner pieces that make these outside corners a breeze... although I think I may know some people who make cleaner drywall cuts, not pointing fingers (ahem... Jeremy). Anyhow as messy and uncertain as this appears I have already added the first (extremely thick) coat of mud over this and it looks fine.
Finally I would like to show you where I am now (skill wise) with my mudding.
It may be almost impossible to see or understand but that is one flat looking seam. Anyhow I have an endless number of pressing things to attend to (and a cup of tea to drink) so that is all for the update. I was planning to go into what tape I prefer and why and technique details but I seriously doubt anyone reading this post would ever take my advice.
Light. How I miss having light. Jeremy works almost every evening on the Studio using an extension cord and some work lights. It really doesn't help having such a long dark winter. But there is light, at least at the end of the proverbial tunnel. As all of the electrical is finished and literally waiting for SaskPower to come and tie us into the grid (literally a 5 minute job).
In the meantime it's time to get serious about drywall and finish all the little bits and pieces that didn't seem important at the time but now are glaringly obvious. Drywall doesn't do itself and sometimes it pays to bring in some relatives... Like the in-laws. So with Papa working with Jeremy on finishing up the drywall we started, and Grandma entertaining the kids outside, I got to do some sewing... To my never ending shame I'm sure. I'll cut this short and show some before and after photos.
Bathroom - Before
Bathroom - After
Main Room West Wall - Before
Main Room West Wall - Half Way...
Main Room West and North Wall - After
Everything is really starting to come together in there. Some times when you drywall a space it seems smaller than before, this space feels exactly opposite. It's much bigger feeling, mostly because it isn't as full of building materials, and the ladders are put away. As soon as we get some heat in there it will me my time to shine and the mud and tape derby will begin!
Man of the Day
Drywall Apprentices
On to doors. This is the back door to the studio, it's approximately 27 inches wide, considering that standard exterior doors are between 32 to 36 inches wide, it's a little door. This is of course ignoring entirely the fact that it is a couple of planks nailed together with some cross braces (aka: a barn door).
So as we 'finish' the major framing/construction of the Studio there is still more to do.... The new door is stashed away in the shop for now awaiting some form of ambition which after a marathon weekend I don't blame Jeremy for motivational apathy.
There is also a door between the back porch and the North wall (pictured above) that sports this awesome door knob. Now I'm not really much for sentimentality but this knob is so cool! Plus it comes with a groovy key. Does anyone know why the key has been blunted? Should I take it somewhere and get a new ring attached or just leave it as is? Anyhow one way or another this door/knob/key are staying in the Studio.
