What a difference a day makes....

  What a difference a day makes.....

November 26th -- Things were looking pretty bleak yesterday, and I wish I would have remembered that tomorrow is another day, because today things turned around into a really good day in the construction zone.

At 7:00am the same two drywall guys who picked up their tools and left yesterday reappeared with a new guy.  Then one of the framers, Mike, appeared.  After several conversations between Mike and the drywall guys, I could hear the buzzing of power tools.  The painter came to meet with me at 8:00am and his crew showed up at 9:00 as the sun was coming out and warming up what had been the past few chilly days.  Then Adam, the hardwood floor guy showed up.  

The contractor also arrived and the construction train that pretty much had derailed off the tracks yesterday, seemed to be back on track chugging along.  It took a lot of yelling, and cajoling and negotiating, but whatever my contractor did saved the day as we are back making forward progress.   In the end it was a combination of a challenging star gable and having the drywall guys with some additional help and experience to get this ceiling done.

The drywall guys are pretty much done on the upper-level and headed downstairs to finish hanging the drywall for the ceiling in the guest suite, in the stairwell to the basement and the new closet off the guest suite, in addition to installing the necessary screws for tomorrow's inspection.

I don't think we can make up for the three lost weeks, but if they can finish the drywall at the end of the day then we can proceed with the screw inspection tomorrow.  If that doesn't happen, then we are delayed again until probably Monday for the screw inspection.

Adam, the hardwood floor guy is super nice and wanted to explain his process to me.  I enjoyed learning about the tongue and groove method for installing hardwood floors and how he selects the boards by the the direction of the wood grain.  I love how some of these guys take so much pride in their work and craftsmanship, and that is Adam.  He also showed me how it uses very small staples and how he will fill them in with wood filler once the flooring is laid.  

Also, in the photo directly below if you look up to the right hand corner you can see one of the painters working on exterior trim.

By the end of the day when I came home from work I was thrilled by the progress that Adam had made on the floor -- it was just amazing....

However, it seems that with every two steps forward, there is at least a half-step backwards.  The contractor explicitly told the drywall guys to leave an opening in the drywall between the studs in what will be the guest suite closet (formerly a door that led into the foyer -- see below), as that is the only way now to get to the second floor as I have the doorway between the living room/temporary kitchen sealed with plastic in an attempt to keep my living area clean.  

Here is the door that led from the small main-level bedroom to the foyer with the framing to close this area off to make a closet for the guest suite.

And here is the view of the newly dry walled closet wall from inside the guest suite .....notice anything?

Surprise!!!  The drywall guys did NOT leave an opening, as we had requested.  This will have to be cut tomorrow and then eventually patched when we no longer need it.

That means that when I came home and walked through the back door there was no way for me to get upstairs to my living area other than to go back outside and walk around the house to the front door.  Yeah, I know, yet another character building experience.  The only problem is that I didn't have my flashlight (which is upstairs) and I had to walk around the house in the dark, and because the painters repainted the front porch and removed the light fixture, I could barely see how to get my key in the front door lock to get in my house.  Fortunately, when I sent an e-mail to the painter asking if they would replace the light fixture tomorrow, within 10 minutes there was a knock on the front door, the light fixture had been replaced and one of the painters was apologizing.  How amazing was that?  This is just one of the reasons why I love these guys.

Although there was significant progress by the end of the day, as shown by these photos of:

....the dry walled fireplace in the master bedroom

The completed dry walled ceiling in the master bedroom

Unfortunately, the remaining drywall in the stairwell to the basement and the guest suite bedroom was NOT completed.  Unless the inspection is scheduled for late afternoon and the drywall guys can get here by 7:00am and are finished by noon, I don't think the screw inspection will happen until after the Thanksgiving holiday.  Yeah....yet another cliff hanger in the drama of this project.  So, stay tuned for tomorrow's episode.

 Oh well....at least today was a better day than yesterday and who knows how good tomorrow will be, as only time will tell.

Oh...one more thing.  My so-called "Christmas Cactus" is somehow managing to thrive despite about an inch coating of construction dust  -- I have had this plant for about 8 years now and it is on its own schedule.  It should be called a "Thanksgiving Cactus" because it never blooms for Christmas, as shown below.

Drywall debacle....

Drywall debacle....

November 25th --   Ugh....it was going well until it wasn't.  

So, the drywall guys did not show up on Sunday.  At 8:00am Monday morning they arrived.  I told them how happy I was to see them and asked if they would finish today.  They told me that they only came by to pick up their tools as they were going to another job.  What?  I asked when they would be back and they said maybe Wednesday or Thursday.  I asked if they really intended to work on Thursday, which is Thanksgiving.  They said yes, picked up their tool belts and left me literally speechless, stunned and in a state of disbelief.

About 15 minutes later I heard someone arrive downstairs.  There I met a new face, who was equally surprised to see me as I was to meet him.  He is the guy who will install the new oak hardwood flooring and he apologized because he didn't know anyone was living in the project.  He also told me that he felt bad that the drywall guys had left such a mess and he would never do that.  I instantly loved this guy. 

He had just got off the phone with my contractor and said he was on the way over.  After the floor guy and my contractor talked, it was my turn.  First, the contractor shared some words of wisdom, "In the construction business, the bullshit flows downward."  Ok...what this means is that the drywall guys decided that the gable ceiling in the master bedroom was "bowed" and they stopped work on Saturday.  The contractor was annoyed because he had sent the framers to the house on Friday and told the drywall guys that if there were any framing problems to tell the framers so they could fix it.  The drywall guys told the framers there were no problems on Friday.  So the contractor couldn't decide if the drywall guys found hanging drywall on the gable ceiling too challenging or if there really was a problem with the framing.  In the meantime, the contractor blamed this problem on the architect and muttered that he is the only one who designs "star gables" which are a pain to drywall, but they are quite beautiful.

I just stood there listening to how each person blamed the other and yes, the bullshit was flowing downward, and I was drowning in it.  The contractor told me that he was meeting the owner of the drywall company in a few hours and would yell at them.  The drywall company was also sending someone in to clean the drywall detritus so that maybe the hardwood floor guy could actually begin installing the tongue and groove flooring.  

Hanging the drywall to the point where the screw inspection could be scheduled should have taken five days, max.  We are now delayed on the project by three weeks because the drywall was late to get started and is still not completed.   The contractor is almost as frustrated as I am, but he gets to leave for a week's vacation after Thanksgiving, and I get to spend Thanksgiving here.  I tried to get a sense from the contractor about when the house would be done, and he said that if "done" meant that I could have livable space that I could move into, probably January.  So, it looks like I will be without a working kitchen and sleeping on my "dog bed," uh I mean "alternative sleeping arrangement" for about another 8 weeks.  I gave myself 72 minutes to wallow in my disappointment before trying to climb back to the heights of uber zen ville.  Let's just say that I'm approaching zen ville with the assistance of red wine, but I am not yet at the uber stage.

On the bright side...at least the first floor drywall detritus was indeed removed and the space clean when I came home this evening.  It was a pleasure to walk into a cleaned main level of the house, even if the dry wall is still only 80% complete.  The kitchen plumbing (farmhouse apron style sink with "intense" faucet and pot filler bar sink) has arrived and the order is ready to be picked up by the contractor before he goes on vacation.  I got a killer "Black Friday" bargain by accident this afternoon -- I logged into Amazon with the intention to order the range vent for the range top when the garbage disposal I had decided upon popped up as a "Black Friday" sale item (even though it was Monday, not Black Friday, go figure).  I saved over $50 and got free shipping on the garbage disposal, and in the excitement, I realized afterwards that I had forgotten to order the range vent, which I will save for tomorrow (maybe I will get another Black Friday bargain on Tuesday).   I will also meet the owner of the painting company tomorrow morning at 8.  I really like this guy and his painting crew, who are in a Reggae band when they are not painting (they are the only blond haired, blue-eyed Reggae musicians I know, but they are really sweet guys).  They will paint my garage, which was not included in the original bid from the contractor.  The painter gave me a very reasonable price and they can get the garage done tomorrow, so we're on as the weather will be decent. They will also power sand the timbers on the covered deck and apply a stain clear coat to the timbers and corbels.  If all works out, tomorrow afternoon I will go back to the "we're more than a brickyard brick yard" to place the order for the thin brick for the kitchen (Pawnee won the vote, by the way).

On Thursday I am hoping that I will be giving thanks for all the drywall being hung, but I am not holding my breath (although I will be holding a large glass of red wine).  I am, however, very thankful that I have shelter and will have an amazing house to live in when all of this construction becomes a faint memory that will be refreshed by a visit in the future to this website -- that is when I have hopefully repressed the memories of the drywall debacle.

Drywall assault team....

Drywall assault team....

November 23rd -- The drywall guys told me that they would be back today -- Saturday.  No one was here at their usual time of 7:00am, but by 8:30am there was a full out drywall assault team. Three guys were working downstairs and two guys were working upstairs.

By 2:30pm they had all disappeared.  They are about 80% done with several ceilings remaining.  They literally dropped their tool belts on the floor and were gone.  It it clear that they will be back, but whether it will be tomorrow or Monday morning is not at all clear to me.

Here are the signs of today's progress...

The master bathroom....

Below is the drywalled master bathroom shower with the built-in bench

Here is the start of the drywall on the gabled ceiling in the master bedroom, north side.

Here is the view looking down the hallway in the master bedroom suite, with the closet to the left and the doorway to the bathroom on the right.

Here is the view from inside the master bedroom looking toward the hallway shown above

A few more views of the start of the ceiling in the master bedroom

Here is the view of the kitchen and the pile of drywall mud boxes that sit in the dining room

Here is the view of the guest bathroom from the guest suite

The view from inside the guest suite looking toward the dining room

The view from the dining room looking through the galley kitchen to west end of the gathering room

The view from the west end of the gathering room into the mudroom rear-entry.

The view of the 3/4 bathroom (to the left) and the kitchen and dining room from the west wall of the gathering room

The view of the doorway to the stairwell leading to the basement and the doorway to the 3/4 bathroom from the west wall of the gathering room

While a lot of progress was made today, I'm ready for the drywall to be done and the mess to be cleaned up.  Even though I know that after the drywall screw inspection there will be more serious mess when they tape, mud and sand the drywall.

At least I am getting a real sense of what these new rooms will look like with the walls up.

So, this entry ends on a suspenseful note....will the drywall crew return tomorrow to finish in time for the drywall screw inspection on Monday?  Will they return on Monday to try to finish in time for the scheduled inspection?  Or will the inspection be rescheduled?

Stay tuned.....
  

Dry wall slow going....

Dry wall slow going....

November 22th --  When the weather turns cold the work slows down, even though just about all of the work for the house now is taking place inside.  I also think that the drywall people underestimated just how much work this drywall would entail.  They are making progress, but so far just two guys have been here for the last four days.  The drywall screw inspection was scheduled for yesterday, and that was postponed.  Now it has been rescheduled for Monday, but unless a whole lot of work is done this weekend, my guess is that it will be rescheduled again.


Nevertheless, there continues to be progress, as shown in some of these "before" and "after" photos. 

The guest suite...

The gathering room....

The southwest corner of the gathering room.......

The view of the kitchen from the gathering room....

The mudroom rear-entry......






The drywall guys have finally started upstairs, and they made good progress......

Here is the soaker tub in the master bathroom with the grey drywall, which has another level of water protection...
































The wall for the double sink vanity...



The master bedroom west wall with door that leads to the covered deck...

The north wall of the master bedroom....

The view of the master bedroom and hallway that leads to the master bath and closet....

The closet with the two built-ins....



















The linen closet next to the master bedroom closet.....

When I got home late on Friday the drywall guys were packing up and they told me they would return at 7:00am Saturday.  Just before they left, a big delivery truck pulled into the alley behind the house and began unloading stacks and stacks of oak hardwood flooring that will be installed early next week.

UPDATE:  I have to correct a prior post where I wrote about the "brackets" that were installed on the over-sized soffits on the rear of the house (shown below).  I have been told that this architectural feature is called a CORBEL which is a "...structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket..." (wikipedia).