I Nearly Shed A Tear

No, I'm not a mamsy-panmsy wheenie – breaking my finger hurt like h-e-double-hockey sticks, but that's not why I almost cried in front of a group of people. New flash, the first four sheets of drywall went up this Saturday! I'm telling you, after the four month road we've been traveling together, that has felt MILES a way at times.

Truth be told, the drywall only went up in the 2nd floor utility room where the second HVAC unit is going, so that it can be installed with the walls already in place. That way we don't have to try to install drywall around it when there's only 4" to work within. But still, it's a MAJOR sign that things are moving in the right direction - things are going ON the walls instead of us PULLING OFF materials. A small step it may be, but I'll take it at this point. The real beginning of installation of drywall hopefully will begin in about two weeks after the inspections of the utilities is complete.

Sean and Ryan install the drywall

Speaking of utilities, that brings us back to the broken finger issue. Yes, I broke my small finger, and yes it has slowed me - slightly - in working on my house, but no it looks nothing like the CHIPPED TOOTH that Matt B. suffered doing the exact same thing I did that broke my finger. I tried to tell him to be careful, but alas he didn't think I must have been serious. How it happened was like this. I was drilling into the floor joists with a 2 3/8" drill bit so I could install a 2" drain line. Well that bit likes to kick back and for most of the day I had it under control and let it beat the crap out of my rib cage when it kicked back. Toward the end of the day I switched my grip and the drill kicked again and it caught my two end fingers in the grip (not the drill pictured) and twisted until I heard a 'snap'. Yep it hurt real bad. Good thing that Ellie wasn't around to repeat what Daddy was saying, it might take a few bars of soap to unlearn those bad habits.

I'm tough when it's turned off/Proof that drills bite back

Now how Matt hit his mouth I can only gather that he loves to do the work so much, that he was able to get close enough the drill (pictured) and it kicked back, knocking out the right side tooth's bottom half. Man I felt bad. To Matt's credit he took it in stride and actually went back to work - man do I have great people working with me or what?! (You can substitute crazy for 'great' if you like.) Anyway, let's all hope that Matt knows a better dentist than he does the plumber that was teaching him on Saturday (that'd be me).

Before the 'smile adjustment'/The offending drill

Additionally, we started into the existing main shower stall and found that the tiles are embedded directly into the plaster of the walls - not into a thinset layer of mortar that would allow them to 'peel off'. Nope, we're going to have to get the concrete saw to cut them out. This will definitely test our deftness with power tools for sure. We also pulled more nails from trim boards, re-raked the back yard to prep for flower bed and flagstone patio creation.There was a lot of cleaning that went on in all four floors so we can be ready for drywall to be delivered so we can use the window openings before the new windows all get installed.

Amy S pulling countless numbers of nails

Oh yeah did I mention that - all new windows baby throughout the whole house. Pella windows of course - is there any other that would be appropriate, most definitely not. I tell you what, I was on the fence as to whether I was going to do just one floor or maybe the front only, but I am really happy that the complete house is being redone - they look beautiful. Yes I actually said beautiful at the risk of sounding girlie. They actually look beautiful. A HUGE shout out of thanks to the folks at Pella Corporation for helping me with these, they make the house - honestly.

The men installing on second floor

In the coming weeks I think there will be A LOT of changes every week that y'all can see out right. I hope to see you back here, that is if you're not lucky enough to share the chili dogs and subs on Saturdays.