Two, Two, Two Trips In One Weekend

We had no work planned for this weekend, but we needed to check out the last half of the taping/texturing work and take care of our full dumpster.  This time we wanted the dumpster to be able to be locked and we wanted it to be placed in the front yard.  We also decided to rent a U-Haul trailer to bring up all the woodworking tools I got from my mom when she moved to AZ, and a washer & dryer my sister gave us when she replaced her old ones with my mom's newer set.  Since the waste management company does not work weekends, I decided to take Friday off work and meet with both the drywallers and the waste management people and then drive the Jeep back home so we could use it to pull the trailer.

I met Craig and Steve at the house and the rest of the texturing looked just as good as the first.  The house looks so much better now. I helped them pack up their tools and paid them for their work. We were glad we took the extra time to remove the screens and tape off the outlets.  It made the clean-up so much easier.  I had some extra time before I went home so I removed all the tape and swept and vacuumed the rooms they had worked in.

The kitchen

The dining room

Looking to the great room from the dining room

Looking at the pantry opening and great room

The front door and den

Front part of the great room

More of the great room

Looking to the back of the house from the great room

The hall bathroom

While I was finishing with Craig and Steve, the waste management driver came and dropped the new dumpster in the front yard and picked up the old one.  Before he drove off, he had to empty the old one and it took a couple of tries and some compacting before the whole thing emptied out.

Did not waste any space. . .

. . .packed to the hilt

Since we had given our door key out to allow people access to the house, and learned that our key had been given to other workers, we decided to re-key the six existing locks on the house.  We had purchased lock sets for the two security screens that are going on the front and back doors and wanted all the keys to be the same.  Home Depot can re-key locks for $5 a cylinder and, when I took them all the locks, I found they could not modify the new locks for the security screens, so we had to change all the door locks to match those anyway.  Everything always works out for the best.

It took Home Depot a couple of hours to re-key all the locks, so I went back to the house to do some cleanup and pull some weeds.  After that, I moved some of the kitchen furniture out of the den and back into the kitchen.  Even with Laurie and I moving this stuff, it was heavy and awkward so Laurie had suggested using some furniture moving disks that we had purchased for another project. I took those up with me and was able to move the table and all three kitchen cabinets on my own. It was not hard at all and was not nearly as awkward.

With all that done, I picked up the locks from Home Depot and put them back on the doors then I returned to the Valley in the Jeep.  Laurie had to take the afternoon off to see the doctor due to some damage done to her toe when one of the cabinets landed on it last weekend.  She got home about the same time I did and we decided to get the trailer early and pick up the washer/dryer from my sister.  Since we were ahead of schedule, we packed all the tools on the trailer and headed back to Payson.  We had originally planned to leave Saturday morning, but this way we did not have to leave the trailer unguarded and be rushed to get up and back on Saturday.  The drive up went very well, with just one hiccup on one of the long downhills.  I tried to keep from riding the brakes and just pumped them to keep our speed down, but by the bottom of the hill I could smell the burning and the brakes were not holding as well, but we were already starting to level off and did not have any further brake problems.

We unloaded all the stuff into the house when we got in around 8pm and almost filled the great room. The next morning we ate breakfast out since our kitchen was dismantled and tried a new place called Tiny's.  We had planned to go to the 360 cafe (the diner we discovered when Doug and Ursi were here), but it was closed for remodeling.  The food at Tiny's was not bad and the price was very reasonable.  We went back to the house to load up some of the old bathroom fixtures on the trailer to drop off at Restore on the way home as we had to have the trailer back by 4pm.  The trip home with the empty trailer was uneventful.

Everything brought up on a 6x12 trailer. . .

. . .but wait, there's more!

Stats: 2 Home Depot trips; 0 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 9/12-9/17: $68
Remodeling expense to date: $32,292

Dog Gone And One Bathroom Painted

This weekend we got an even later start on our trip up north than we did before the holidays.  Our MR KLUD group decided to go to a Diamondbacks game and Friday was the only day that worked for everyone.  We had a great time taking the light rail into town and watching them beat the San Diego Padres.  While we were gone, we had to leave our dog Zena outside because the housekeeper was coming to our house and this was the first time we have ever done that.  She loves the pool and knows how to get out, so we thought the worst problem we would have would be a wet dog.  While we were at the game, a storm blew in and Zena hates thunder and lightning.  Now we figured we would have a wet, freaked out dog, but instead we were greeted by no dog at all.  She was not in the backyard.  We have a six foot high wall around the yard which we could not imagine her jumping.  After making one trip around the block, I thought maybe someone might have found her and called us from her tag.  Sure enough, we had two messages from a person about 1/2 mile away and we went and picked her up.  This made for a late night and we needed to get on the road fairly early in the morning as we had lots to do.

We arrived in the morning to find Steve still working.  He had finished the master bathroom and was now applying caulk to all the corners around the house.  We were very impressed by the look of the texturing and the work had taken care of all the imperfections in our drywall work. Speaking of which, we received many compliments from Steve and Craig on our drywalling work.  I guess the slow and steady pace (and being a perfectionist) has its benefits.

Our first task was to drop off a load of items we had set aside for Restore (Habitat for Humanity used building supply store) the prior weekend.  To make space, we had packed them into the Jeep so we could take them this weekend.  After that we stopped by the local paint store, Neumann, to get some drywall primer/sealer and paint for our master bathroom.  It is the only room we needed to paint right away so we could put in the new toilet.  This allows us to tear apart the hall bathroom and still have a toilet to use.  Just after we got our paint and grabbed lunch, we got a call from Craig asking us to stop and get more caulk for Steve.  He had run out with only about four feet left to go.  So we ran by Home Depot and picked up a few tubes for him.  When we got home, he finished up and left for the weekend.  Now it was our turn to work.

Before we could start moving stuff around, we had to clean up after all the work.  Something we had not considered.  We swept and vacuumed (twice) all the rooms.  We had to remove all the window screens and rinse off the dust and caked on drywall.  It was quite the task.  Next we did a primer coat on our bathroom to give it time to dry so we could put on the topcoat.  We chose a Swiss Coffee color in a satin finish instead of semi-gloss based on Neumann's recommendation.  We will have to see how that works with the white vanity for that bathroom.

After the primer was on, we started moving all the stuff in the great room to their proper locations, starting with our bedroom.  We set up our table desks in the guest bedroom temporarily since the den is the best place for all the equipment/fixtures which still need to be installed.  We also had to put our garage sale TV and DVD player back there until the rest of the house is done.  We brought in one more of the tall pantry cabinets we had removed from the kitchen last year and stored in one of our sheds, and placed it in the pantry with the other one.  Now we have double the storage space until we build the shelving for the pantry.

Master bedroom after everything was put back in

Another shot of our bedroom

The hall to the guest bedrrom

The temporary setup of the guest bedroom

Showing the desk setup which will not stay in here

One side of the main hallway. . .

. . .and the other side

The pantry, with stuff from the kitchen clean-out

The laundry room

Later in the evening, we made a run to Home Depot to pick up the vanity top and medicine cabinet that was part of our bid order and also get plumbing parts for installing the toilet and new vanity.  While talking with the plumbing guy on another issue, I found that there are two kinds of bathroom sink faucets.  One has a 4" spread and the other an 8" and this has to match the holes drilled in your vanity top.  We had bought some faucets on the bid awhile ago and they were 4", but the top we had on the bid is 8" so we had to get new faucets for the bathrooms and they were much, much more expensive than the 4" ones.  It was good to find this out now and not while doing the install.

I woke up before Laurie on Sunday and started removing all the light fixtures in the rooms left to be done: the great room, hall bathroom, kitchen and dining room.  The kitchen took some time because I had to remove nine recessed lighting covers.  When Laurie woke up, it was time to apply the topcoat to the bathroom.  We were unsure of the color at first, but after it dried it looked much better and coordinates ok with the white vanity (but Laurie is still reserving the option to change the color at a later date).  We got a multi-colored sink top and it helps to bring the colors together.

While waiting for the paint to dry, we worked on removing everything from the hall bath, except the vanity and toilet for now, and emptying the shelves and cabinets in the kitchen. Once the paint was dry, I replaced the three water shutoff valves in the master bath and installed the toilet.  I wanted to install the vanity, but one of the drain tubes was not long enough.  So we will be without a sink until I can finish that connection.  Now that we had a working toilet, we could do the last step of removing the hall bath vanity and commode.  They came out fairly easy, but I found we have a very rusty toilet base and will need to replace that when we change the tile.  One last item before we left was to remove the screens in the part of the house to be done to avoid having to clean them after the fact.

The new commode and paint job

The new vanity and countertop without plumbing

In the afternoon we had to make another run to Home Depot.  The night before when we picked up the vanity top and cabinet, I did not realize there were two side splash board boxes in the cart for the counter tops and left them there.  We called Home Depot about this, but no one had turned anything in as far as they could tell.  So we stopped by to work with them on this and they took care of the problem and gave us new parts, even though I told them it was my fault.  They have been very good to us, but we have also spent quite a bit of money there in the past year (they know us when we come in now).

Just as we were finishing up, Steve stopped by to start working.  We asked him to give us about a half hour to get out of the house.  We packed up the car and made sure everything was completed just as Steve came back.  We left the house in his hands as we drove back to the Valley.

Stats: 3 Home Depot trips; 1 Walmart trip
Remodeling expense 9/6-9/11: $325
Remodeling expense to date: $32,224

Fun And Labor Over Labor Day Weekend

Well two more weekends have gone by since our last visit to the house.  Laurie and Matt took a cross-country road trip to take him and his car back to school in Texas and I was in California moving my mother to AZ after her husband passed away earlier in the month.  The other weekend we felt we needed to stay in the valley to take care of things and we are glad we did as my sister's A/C unit died and my mom spent her first weekend in AZ at our place to avoid the heat.

This was our first weekend after Laurie started her new job.  It was different waiting until after 7pm to drive up to Payson where in the past we have left early in the day or even taken the extra day off.  We were thankful that traffic was not too bad for a three-day holiday weekend.  We did not get much done on Friday after getting up there around 9pm.

Our priority this weekend was to remove everything from one half of the house to allow the drywall taping/texturing to be started. This meant removing all ceiling fans from the three bedrooms, the light fixtures from the master bath, laundry, hall and pantry and then moving all equipment and items from all those areas into the great room.  That also included taking out the vanity and toilet from the master bathroom to allow new texturing to be done behind these units.  But before we jumped into all that work, we decided to start with breakfast in Pine and then went to the craft fair.  We found it was mostly the same booths as we saw at the 4th of July event, but Laurie did find some things to buy.  We also stopped by the thrift store to pick up king size pillow cases for use in the Valley.  We were very happy we went up to Pine early for breakfast as there was a couple mile backup on the highway of people trying to get into Pine.  Dodged that bullet!

We stopped at Restore for a kitchen cabinet and sink that we can use temporarily until we are ready to build or purchase our kitchen cabinets.  We need to have the kitchen sink in to satisfy the final permit inspection.  We found something that would work for us and all we will need to do is cut a plywood top to set the sink in.  The whole cost was only $20, including two light fixtures Laurie found.

We drove up to Star Valley to look at some pre-built storage buildings we saw there a few weeks back while driving to Christopher Creek.  We are trying to get some ideas for what we want for the workshop we will be building in the back yard.  We can build a 144 sq.ft. structure without having a permit, so we want to find the right plan to maximize the space. They had some great barn style units that have storage space in the rafters.  They also have some with roll-up doors available that would be great for moving larger items in and out of the building.  We found we cannot buy the pre-built units because they deliver them complete and they are too large to fit through our 9' double gates, but we now have some good ideas for building our own.

We finally started working on Sunday.  Laurie's dad showed up in the morning on his way to Christopher Creek to help us return our excess drywall to Home Depot.  We did not have anything long enough to transport the 12' sheets and he has an extender bar on his hitch that allows 12' items to be put into the bed of his truck.  This freed up a lot of floor space in our great room. We also picked up all the taping and texturing supplies for the next couple of weeks.

Next was to throw away all excess drywall we had been saving for patching or small areas.  Now that we are done, we no longer need these pieces, though we did save a couple just in case.  Our dumpster is now completely full so we will need to make plans to have it swapped out.  All the tools stored in the guest bedroom were moved to our small workshop building and everything else was moved into the great room.  It didn't take long to fill that room up again.

Our great room filled to the hilt

On Monday we dismantled our bedroom and bathroom.  We had to put a drywall patch where the medicine cabinet was since the new one will mount on the wall which is easier than cutting a hole for it.  The toilet and vanity we saved to donate to Restore as they are still in decent shape.  All our clothes were put into one of the pantry cabinets in the great room and our bed fit against a wall in the dining room.  The back of the house is bare and ready for the taping and texturing.

Empty den except for taping/texturing supplies

A cleaned out laundry closet

Matt's room really clean for once

Master bath with no fixtures and all patches

In the afternoon, Craig and Steve stopped by to show us samples of the different types of texturing that they are recommending for the house.  We picked the Santa Fe design for the walls and a regular skip trowel for the ceilings.  Even though only the kitchen ceiling is new, we are having the whole ceiling re-textured so it will match as you can see the history of patches, plus we had to do some patching of our own.  They decided to get started on the work as soon as we left so we packed up the car just after 5pm and hit the road which allowed us to avoid some of the three-day weekend traffic.

P.S. - Almost forgot that Laurie came up to the house on Tuesday, 9/24, for an overnighter to meet with another drywall company to get a quote for taping and texturing our house.  While she was there, Craig came by and installed the skylight where the old stove pipe used to be.  It adds a lot of light to the room and kept us from having to patch the roof as the skylight was slightly bigger than the stovepipe.

New skylight in place of stovepipe

No more ugly metal tube on roof

Stats: 2 Home Depot trips; 2 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 8/16-9/5: $717
Remodeling expense to date: $31,899

Praise God! The Drywall Is Done And Approved

While Laurie was staying up in Payson this past week, she got a call from our electrician Craig just checking in with us.  Come to find out he was in-between jobs and could use some work.  We still had a couple of leftover projects that he could do for us, so he came over Friday and put in the special arc fault breakers into our electrical panel.  Home Depot was out of stock of these last year when he was finishing up, so we had to wait for a later date.  He had some more time before he had to take off, so we had him install the new door to Matt's room.  I have now installed three doors in the house and do not enjoy it at all, come to find out neither does Craig.  But since Craig was willing, I was happy to let him do it.  It took him almost as much time as it took me, but I had a helper and he did not and his seem to fit better.

Guest door installed by Craig - works great!

Craig originally was going to put up our double-doors to the den, but found that the external measurement of the frame was shorter than the opening by almost two inches.  This meant a lot of space to shim up.  He recommended adding another one inch board on each side to fill the gap.  We had some of these boards on hand for the outside door trim, so cut a couple on Saturday morning and put them up.  There is definitely a lot less space to shim now.  We also found that we should wait to put up any more doors until after the drywall taping and texturing as that will be less to pre-tape before the work.  So doors are on hold for now.

Extra door jamb board

Opening made smaller by two inches

We spent the balance of the day installing the rest of the drywall in the den.  This was the west wall with the closet and the two short walls in the alcove (used to be the room entrance).  We had to trim around the closet opening and the overlap to the north wall.  The last part was to add the closet door entry trim.  We used a ceiling piece of drywall for the top of the opening as we needed to reduce the height a little for the future bi-fold doors.  This completed almost six months of weekend drywalling; however, we were not quite finished.

Opening cut out for closet

Last large wall of drywall

The small alcove (old entrance to room)

Last screw put in on regular drywall

Matt worked all week on another chair similar to the one he made me for Father's Day.  This one would be for Laurie's birthday and would give us matching deck chairs.  He finished the chair this weekend.

Matching chairs made by Matt

On Sunday, we started patching the bigger holes in the ceiling and bathrooms.  We knew the taping guy would do it, but we had time and we hoped it would reduce the cost we would have to pay.  We also started the drywall strips around the window frames.  We got most of the strips up before I left for the Valley and then Matt and Laurie finished up that night.

Patch for old stove vent hole More patches in master bathroom. . . . . . and another one Patch for old wall heater in guest bath One window completed with trim drywall Craig came over again Monday morning to finish all the coax cable connections. Though we will not be having cable for awhile, it still needed to be done.  He also had time to finish putting in the plumbing vents through the roof for the laundry room and master bath.  It was found in the original inspection that these vent tubes terminated in the attic and needed to be finished. I am not real comfortable putting holes in the roof, so was happy Craig could do this job. New vent for master bathroom We had our drywall inspection Monday morning and passed - Yeah! - so we are on to the next phase: taping & texturing. Laurie is starting back to work in a couple of weeks, so we have decided to have someone else do the drywall taping and texturing for us.  We thought we would have more time on our original work permit for the house, but found they would only extend it another six months.  There would be no way with Laurie working full time that we would complete the work needed to satisfy the new permit deadline and we do not want to pay to extend it.  Our friend Craig knows a guy who does great work and talked to him about us.  He was going to stop by and see Laurie before she left for the Valley on Wednesday, but she and Matt decided to leave Monday because Matt's job ended earlier than planned and we had a last minute family get-together Monday night.  So Craig brought this guy over that evening to check out the job and then locked up the house and called us later with the information.  It is more than we originally thought it would be, but cheaper than a regular drywall company would charge (we found out later with another quote).  Plus, we like Craig and his work, so we like that Craig is recommending this guy to us.  Hopefully we can have them start this work right after Labor Day weekend. Stats: 2 Home Depot trips; 3 Walmart trips Remodeling expense 8/8-8/15: $388 Remodeling expense to date: $31,182