Living Room Week!

Welcome to LIVING ROOM WEEK! Probably the best week I've had in quite a while, actually. This sickness is finally leaving me, house work is being completed, and best of all, Mike and I have a special event in Boston to attend at the end of the week. Everything has been generally good.... note I'm not claiming that this is the best week ever or anything like that... but "generally good" is pretty good after a slew of "very bad," "horrible," "sick," and the ever-popular, "Uuughsph" weeks.

First lets rewind to last Sunday. Mike completed the leveling to a point of less then perfect, but more then adequate. And, I might add, no cracks in the upstairs drywall or hardwood floors. The same afternoon, I was able to get a break to remove the living room window trim and a large section of drywall that needed to be replaced.

Upon removal of said drywall piece, I was shocked to find a portion of the exterior wall that had been left uninsulated. How we managed to forget one little portion is beyond me and this was definitely contributing to the whole downstairs heat problem.

I also found some nifty souvenirs in the wall from when we originally demolished the old plaster walls that I'd completely forgotten about.

This "No Snake" sign I created to help guide and inform all the confused snakes that kept getting into the basement. (at that time a dirt crawl space)

I hoped to encourage natural snake control with this "Mongoose OK" sign... but never saw any mongooses. Both signs I left in the wall for future renovators.... funny that I got to take one last look before the wall went back up again.

On Monday, Mike cut a new sheet of drywall to replace the damaged one. Monday night, he removed the pipe - put in originally in hopes of a wood stove. (We still hope to add our wood stove someday... just a little differently.)


Also he cut a new piece of drywall to fill the void left by the pipe, insulated the wall portion that had been previously neglected, and then screwed both pieces of drywall to the wall.


On Tuesday night, Mike started on the plywood - managing to install 3 sheets. (Note that each cat couldn't resist getting his and herself into Tuesday and Wednesday's picture.)

On Wednesday our neighbors Dana and Rich came over to tag team the drywall while Mike and I were at work. Though we really just needed a couple of areas fixed, these two are perfectionists and taped up ALL the problem areas.

And that brings us up to date. Next, after the mud dries fully, the guys will return to sand and all that good stuff. Then the entire room will need to be primed and repainted. (Yes, they fixed a lot and the entire room will need to be repainted. No way around it.) At the same time, Mike can continue installing the subfloor.

Timetable? No clue. But this is a heck of a lot farther then I thought we'd be at this point. Just goes to show how much you can accomplish when you do a little every night.

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