Matt's Room is Complete

We have not done any drywall work on the Payson house since the beginning of April.  We have been up to the house a couple of times since then, but once was just an overnight stay and the other was a weekend with our son Matt and his girlfriend Danielle.  We used the place as a stopping point to continue up to the Grand Canyon with an overnight stay in Williams and then back to the Payson house for another night.  The trip was fun and we saw elk and a bobcat at the canyon around dusk on our way out.

This past weekend, we decided to take one extra day to avoid the Memorial day holiday traffic so we went up Thursday afternoon and came back late on Monday.  The highway construction that started just after Labor Day in 2010 was finally completed and the trip up and back was clear - no longer a single lane - and free of traffic.  It was so nice and made Mike very happy.

We took Matt with us and our original plan was to get as much work done as possible over the four days we were up there.  However, Matt was still looking for a summer job and we thought he might have better luck in Payson since they are more of a summer season area than Phoenix.  So he and I left Friday morning to do some shopping and put some applications in for him and did not get back until early afternoon.  Then we had some good friends, Doug and Ursi, call to let us know they were in town passing through to go camping in Williams.  So all three of us met them at the McDonalds to visit for a little bit.  We then headed up to Pine to check out another possible job opportunity for Matt at a thrift store and of course to do some more shopping.  By the time we got back, it was too late to start any work.  However, Mike did find some parts he needed at the Pine thrift store to use to install a wall-mounted make-up mirror I found at a garage sale and he put it up in our master bathroom.

Wall-mounted mirror from a garage sale for make-up and hair

Saturday morning Mike was up early to go to a local farmer's market.  He was interested in getting some tamales he heard they had for sale.  He found an arts & crafts fair in town and came home to get us and we all went.  On our way home, we passed one of my favortie thrift stores and they had a wood kitchen table set for sale.  It was a table with four chairs for $125.  We bought it and then tried to figure out how to get it home in our Altima, when one of the guys who works there came out and asked where we lived.  Turns out he lives nearby and he offered to deliver it for free.  We had it in the house and setup later that afternoon.  Mike and I went out to buy some accessories and found that Home Depot had discounted their outdoor chairs and picked up four to complete our outdoor dining set (previously used as our kitchen table). Seeing that it was Memorial Day weekend, we thought we should have a flag at the house and bought one while at Home Depot.  Mike and Matt set it up when we got home and displayed it the rest of the weekend.

Table and chairs from thrift store with hardly a scratch for $125

Old dining table now outside with new chairs

New flag and holder to give honor to those who serve and have served on this holiday

We got an early morning call on Sunday from my Dad to say he and my step-mom were on their way up to their place in Christopher Creek and would we like to meet for breakfast.  We prodded Matt out of bed (not his normal waking hour, but the promise of pancakes got him moving) and met them at the Beeline Cafe.  We had a great breakfast and made it home early enough to actually do some work.

We decided to finish drywalling Matt's (guest) room first.  We had two walls left to do in this room and once completed, we will not have to pass drywall through the den/hallway wall anymore.  First Mike had to trim away some of the old drywall around the closet opening.  We did not remove any drywall from the closets and the existing drywall on the opening overlapped the drywall on the wall. During the deconstruction, some of the hangover part was ruined but we were able to trim it flush with the studs and make a good corner with the new dywall overlapping the old.  The trimming threw a lot of drywall dust into the air and, since we were already making a mess, we decided to cut out the window opening which had been covered since the install last year.  Thought this would help get some air flow (and light) into the room.

Matt's room window uncovered to help air out drywall dust

Putting up the drywall in the guest room was more difficult than we originally thought due to the door and the closet.  It is easy to cut out around windows using our Dremel tool, but it takes more effort around doors since a small gap needs to be left for the door frame.  The closet cutting was tough because we have to cut the new drywall without damaging the old drywall.  In the end we were able to finish all the cuts and think it will all work.

One of the last two walls in Matt's room we finished

The last wall we completed, including cutting for corners around the closet

Since we had a long day doing drywall, we decided we would only do one drywall project per weekend to leave us time to complete one of our smaller projects (there are plenty of those).  At the beginning of the weekend, I noticed one of the boards we had put up under the house to cover our crawlspace openings had fallen.  Mike decided that we needed to cover these openings with the siding we had bought last year for this purpose.  As usual, what was thought to be an easy, quick project, turned into a whole day event.  Mike and Matt had to go to Home Depot to find something to rest the siding on since it could not go all the way to the dirt (wood-to-dirt is an issue for termites).  They originally thought they would use some cement bricks similar to the house supports, but trying to cut brick to fit the openings would have been tough.  They found some composite decking material that Home Depot had reduced the price on due to a non-stock return and thought that would work as a buffer material.  They cut those boards to lay sideways in the opening and then placed the siding board on top.  These were screwed into 2x2s that they nailed into the concrete supports.  They completed the last opening just about dinner time.  Mike also added one of the composite boards to close an opening under the front porch, which was the last large opening into the crawl space.  We still have spots where very small critters can squeeze through (mice and such), but the larger animals should not be able to get in.  We did decide that all future "extra" projects will not be that involved.

Three of four openings under the deck for our crawlspace walled in. The darker wood is the composite.

Composite wood placed between brick and wood deck.  Last large opening filled.

It was an overall great weekend with lots of rest, shopping and some work done at the house, including having one room completed with drywall. It is nice to be at a stage that we can actually go up to Payson and relax for some of the time.

Stats: 3 Home Depot trips; 5 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 4/24-5/30: -$555
Remodeling expense to date: $26,677

Short Weekend

It was a toss-up whether to go up to Payson this weekend or stay home and work on the pool and patio renovation (can't get enough of that construction work).  We opted to go up north for just one night as it may be a few weeks before we can get back up there and Mike wanted to check to make sure there were no water leaks since we started leaving the water on for the sprinkler system. That left us Sunday to work on the pool deck at our house in Gilbert.

After getting a new stem installed a few weeks ago in the master bathtub, Mike really wanted to find a replacement handle like the original one (that one had to be drilled out to get it off).  He found one online in New Jersey and it came last week.  He replaced it on Friday and now the tub is back to normal.

There was a community garage sale in our neighborhood last weekend and I found a front porch light I liked better than the one we'd originally installed.  The first one had a top that made it too tall.  Mike was able to replace the light on Friday and this one fits just right.

Our new used front porch light with our seasonal decoration and sign

We made a trip to Home Depot on Friday to look at some items for the current bid we are working on.  We priced out some gutter components and looked at various types of drywall tape and corner beads. While we were there, we decided to get a weed eater instead of having to bring up the one from home because the grass/weeds in the front were getting tall already.  Mike worked on the grass and weeds on Saturday, pulling what he could and cutting down the rest, but the weed eater did not work as designed, so we took it back.  We also took measurements throughout the house for our drywall tape and corner bead that will go up after we finish hanging the drywall.  We still have a long way to go before we need it, but we want to add these items to our current bid to see if we can get better pricing.

While we were at the house on Friday evening, we heard the water pipes start to moan (happens when the water runs through some of the faucets), but there was no water running.  Mike found that the anti-siphon sillcock in the back yard, that we had connected to one of the water timers, was gushing water out of the anti-siphon device.  He took it apart and found a washer had been dislodged and put it back in place.  This stopped the leak, but later that evening it started up again.  Mike had to get a new one at Home Depot the next morning and he replaced the whole valve.  We had planned to replace this valve eventually because it was very hard to open and close.  Mike thinks something got damaged internally when he originally installed it.  We really thanked God for letting us go up there to check on the place as this leak could have run for weeks.  Leaks will always be a concern as long as the water is left on while we are away.  Mike likes to turn off the water flow to the hot water heater while we are gone, but there are definitely many more areas that could spring a leak in our absence.  Mike has talked about re-routing the water connections that feed the sprinklers so we can turn off the house water and leave only those two lines active.  He does not think it will be that difficult to do and it will help to alleviate the concern.

We had accumulated quite a few items from Home Depot for the restoration that had yet to be installed.  We decided to add these parts to our current bid and found we could save quite a bit of money buying them through the bid.  Before we returned home, we gathered up all these items and returned them to Home Depot.  We received store credit which we will give right back to Home Depot when we finalize our bid.

Stats: 3 Home Depot trips; 0 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 4/11-4/23: -$313
Remodeling expense to date: $26,122

No More Fire Hazard!

We finally finished putting up the drywall on all the outside walls.  Since we installed all the insulation over the Thanksgiving Holiday, and since insulation is supposed to be covered as soon as possible so as not to be a fire hazard, we are lucky our little house survived these past 5+ months.  This last wall was the most difficult!  It is the east wall of the family room and it is almost 24 feet long.  Because both the roof and floor slope in this room, we had to cut each piece of drywall on the diagonal.  To make the process harder, we were working behind the pile of drywall that we're storing on the family room floor and we had to stagger the vertical seams.  Because of this, we ended up putting up the bottom drywall before the top which is not recommended by any of the drywall hanging websites.  We weren't sure why this would be a problem until we actually had to do it.  For those of you who have never hung drywall, what we discovered is that the reason it is easier to put up the bottom drywall last is you can fudge a little on the bottom spacing.  You can't do that on the top.  You have to get a precise measurement which was no easy feat with our sloping roof line.  It took a lot longer than usual, but we did it and it actually looks really good.

One more piece to go

All the boards are up, but need to finish the screws. Went to a movie and dinner instead

Finished all the screws after dinner and rearranged boards and tools.

We didn't get to try out our new grill this weekend.  I forgot the steaks and I was going to go into to town to pick some up when it started snowing. We decided it wouldn't be the best time to grill out so we went out for for a movie and dinner instead.  The snow fell all day Saturday and into the night.  We got as much or more than when it snowed before New Year's!  It didn't stay around long and by Sunday you couldn't even tell we'd had any.  Since we couldn't go hiking and we didn't have any yard work to do, we headed home early on Sunday.

Snowfall by mid-morning, looks like picture from New Year's

I was worried about the trees and tried to remove excess snow

Zena playing with her ball in the snow

Mike shoveling the last of the snow

Our Christmas gift from Matt was hung up this weekend.

Stats:  1 Home Depot trip; 0 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 4/4-4/10: $0
Remodeling expense to date: $26,435

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