Another Two Bite The Dust

Well we are almost finished hanging the drywall on the exterior walls.  We did the two outside walls of the Master bedroom today.  It seems to get easier each time.  Must be learning from our past experience.  We had to cut 5 feet out of one wall for the french doors.  We were concerned about trying to get the top piece up over the doors so we ended up cutting the 12 foot length in half.  Working with a 6 foot section is so much easier – now we’re wishing we’d just ordered the 8 foot pieces of drywall.  Would have resulted in a lot more taping, but the hanging sure would have gone faster!  We are finding that there are some rather large gaps between the ceiling and wall drywall due to the uneven slope of the roof so my sister suggested we use crown molding to cover the seam.  We picked up a couple of pieces at Home Depot and tried them out and found one we like.  It is a curved “cove” molding and it is very subtle which we like because the house is not going to be fancy enough to support traditional crown molding.  Mike also cut the window opening in the family room so we could get more airflow in the house.  We didn’t have to use our heater or A/C this weekend, but we can tell the warm weather is coming soon.

The west wall of the master bedroom

The north master bedroom wall

We can see out the front again and all the windows got cleaned too

Because we didn’t have towel racks in the master bathroom, we’ve been hanging our bath towels on a hook over the door in our bedroom.  I found a wall cabinet, with towel bar, for $25 at Target and Mike put it together and mounted it.  Now we just have to find somewhere for Mike to hang his towel :).

A great place for MY towels

We did a lot of outside work this weekend.  We had hoped to go for a hike on Sunday, but the yard work took most of the day and exhausted us so we will hike another day.  We cut down/pulled up two dead trees (killing one old electric chainsaw in the process) and planted our living Christmas tree.  We also pulled a lot of weeds, trimmed the out of control hedge beast in our front yard and transplanted a “volunteer” side bush to a more suitable location.  Since the weather is getting warmer and we’re only coming up every few weeks, we made some repairs to the sprinkler system, ran a new line under the deck to the rose bush and installed timers on both the front and back spigots (our sprinklers are not automatic).  We also found some really cute solar post lights at Home Depot to add some ambiance to our driveway.  Finally, we added mulch to our front yard trees and rose bush.  Very colorful!

We gave the pine tree that was here time to recover, but alas it had to go

The beast hedge all trimmed proper

Our other pine tree that is still alive

This tree changed color in two weeks

Our living Christmas tree in the ground

Rose bush with mulch and new drip line (at wall)

Two station timer for our front water lines

Solar LED light mounted on our driveway posts

We’ve been having trouble with the tub in the master bath.  The tub/shower faucet did not have a stop point, so it took a little work to get it positioned to be off.  We could not find a replacement in the Payson area so Mike had to jury rig something together which has never quite worked.  This last week he decided he was going to go to every plumbing  store in the valley until he found the replacement stem and he did – at Central AZ Supply in Mesa.  He was able to replace the mechanism and the tub is now good as new.  He also fixed a tiny leak that had developed under the house in the winterizing drain he installed last year.

We made some improvements in the kitchen by bringing up some unused shelving.  It is amazing how nice it is to have our food supplies organized and accessible.  I told Mike I could be happy with this setup for a kitchen until we’re ready to retire, but then I made a comment about the sink being too small and now he doesn’t believe me.  While at Home Depot, Mike decided to get a new gas grill.  The one we have been using is a tabletop model and just wasn’t manly enough (I guess) so now we have one that he assures me will get used every weekend we are up there.  I just need to remember to pack the steaks.

More places to store our stuff and easier to access

Just a small grill, but bigger than the camping one we've been using

This was also our first weekend trip where we stayed Sunday night and came back to the valley early Monday morning.  We woke up at 5:30am and was able to leave the house by 6am (no need to winterize anymore).  The traffic was almost non-existent and Mike was still able to make it in to work around 8am.  We may start to do this more when the weekend traffic gets heavier this summer.

Stats:  2 Home Depot trips; 1 Walmart trip
Remodeling expense 3/21-4/3: $261
Remodeling expense to date: $26,435