Spring Is Starting to Spring

We arrived at our place Friday afternoon to a stunning display of purplish leaves on our tree out front.  We found quite a few trees starting to bring in new colors throughout the neighborhood and town.

Beautiful bloom on our tree in the front yard

We brought with us a new counter-top convection oven to give ourselves more cooking options than the microwave and a bullet-like mixer.  Both were quite a deal at Kohls.  We spent the late afternoon rearranging the kitchen and getting the house out of its winterized condition.  Since the days are getting longer, we had time to take a neighborhood walk while there was still light.

Our kitchen keeps growing with more stuff

Will soon need more counter space

We are determined to hang drywall on the exterior walls of at least one room every weekend we come up.  This weekend we did the guest (Matt's) bedroom.  Mike spent some time in the morning removing the rest of the paneling in the small hallway so we could pass the long sheets of drywall through the wall studs in the den.  He also removed other pieces of paneling that remained around the doors in the hall and bedroom.  Since we have been using the guest bedroom to store all our tools, Mike had to clear them all out to give us room to work.  He then spent some extra time removing dried spray foam insulation from around the windows.

Removing paneling around door

Multi-tool has been a great asset

Opening through den to guest room

While Mike was working, I wanted to visit the local paint store to look at a product I had seen there last year that might work for a remodel we are planning for our pool deck in the valley.  I also stopped at the grocery store and snuck into a thrift shop (unbeknownst to Mike) while I was out.

When I got home, we started the drywalling.  This was our first attempt to hang drywall without Matt.  We were concerned about moving the sheets, but did not really have many issues.  It was fun taking the sheets through the wall as I could walk right through carrying the sheet (my diet is actually paying off), but Mike had to set it down and walk around.  He could fit through the stud openings, but not with the drywall.  We didn't plan well for the first sheet we moved and ended up taking it in backwards.  Since the sheets are the full length of the room, we could not turn it around and had to bring it all the way back out and do it again.  More thought went into the other three sheets, but we still got it wrong on the third sheet.  It only took about five hours, but we did complete the two exterior walls in that room.

A picture to prove I am working

Done for the day and my thrift store coveralls

We had a leisurely morning on Sunday and then started some yardwork.  Mike continued his spraying of all the weeds and I watered bushes/trees and pulled up an awful looking vine that had fallen off one of our brick walls.  Before going home, we went on a 2 hour hike just west of our house.  There is a north part of the trail and a south part, but the two do not yet meet.  We wanted to see if we could find a connection to get from one to the other and we did (mostly due to someone thoughtfully placing yellow ribbons on trees) - down the side of a hill, through brush and some cactus and we were on the south trail at last.  This took us back to some town roads which looped back up to our place.  We think we hiked about 6 miles, though next time we will remember our camera and GPS.

It is possible that the temperatures will still get to freezing at night before we make it back, so we winterized the place again (hopefully the last time for awhile) and took off for home.

Stats:  0 Home Depot trips; 0 Walmart trips (Wow that's a first!!)
Remodeling expense 3/7-3/20: $0
Remodeling expense to date: $26,174

We Are Back

We originally decided not to start work again on the Payson house until the beginning of April, but we needed to spend a weekend at the house to test a recent upgrade to the heating system while it was still cold.  During our stay at the end of 2010, the company we bought the system from installed a new part to help the unit convert from heat pump to heat strip at a certain temperature.  After they did the install, it did not seem to be working properly that same night, but due to the holidays and extreme weather issues the company could not work on it before we left.  I went up for a day in February to meet the service guy and get the unit configured properly and this weekend was a test, while overnight temperatures were still low, to see if the unit worked as it should.  Although the temperatures were not as extreme as they were at the end of December, we were toasty in the house and the unit was not blowing cool air.

While we were at the house this weekend we decided to do a little work and, if the weather continues to be as nice as it was, we will start coming up every other weekend to continue our improvements.  This weekend we did some demolition to remove the drywall and paneling in the short hallway by the bedrooms.  Our original plan was to leave this drywall up, but we found that in order to get the new drywall sheets back to the guest bedroom, we would have to either go through the window or go through the den wall as the 12 foot sheets will not fit around the hall corner.  After lifting some of these heavy sheets, we decided that taking down the hallway drywall was the easier way to go.  As an added benefit, now all the walls (with the exception of the bathrooms) will all have new drywall and all the old paneling will be gone.

We were not able to take down all the paneling as Mike had taken our new Craftsman multi-tool down to the valley and did not think about bringing it back.  It is the best tool to use to cut the paneling in the corners as the recriprocating saw is too unwieldy to use on this.  We will bring the tool back on our next trip to finish the job.

The drywall will go through the wall on the left into the door on the right.

We made a trip to Home Depot for some weed killer (they are already growing) and other miscellaneous items.  We spent some time there pricing out lumber and parts we will need to build a Murphy bed.  We bought a hardware kit from Rockler Woodworking when they had a recent sale.  We are interested in putting one in the guest bedrooms in each of our houses, but to buy one at a furniture store would cost over $2500.  The kit, on sale, was about $270 and comes with a plan and parts list to build the bed cabinet.  The lumber and parts priced out around $370.  All we need after that is a queen mattress and we should have a Murphy bed for under $1000.  We will need to wait until after we get our Jeep back to pick up the lumber and will add the materials to our next Home Depot bid, which hopefully will save us even more.

We spent Sunday relaxing in the morning and then I watered all the plants while Mike sprayed the weeds.  Since the temperatures are still getting under freezing at night, we re-winterized the place before we left in the afternoon.

Stats:  1 Home Depot trip; 1 Walmart trip
Remodeling expense 1/4-3/6: $347
Remodeling expense to date: $26,174