Taking the paintbrush into our own hands

The drywalling took longer than we anticipated, and they finished today at noon. We were disgruntled at the whole afternoon going to waste plus the thought of two days going towards painting(the painters were scheduled to prime Wednesday and then painting on Thursday). Erik and I decided to call the contractor and said we would prime today and paint tomorrow so that cabinets could be installed on Thursday. I started while Keagan was napping, and we have both been working since Keagan went to sleep. We are almost done with the primer. Tomorrow morning the contractor is coming to make sure the drywall is satisfactory and I'll be heading down to the store for our paint. I think the kitchen will be "butter pecan" and the bathroom will be "silver dollar", but I'm not 100% sure about that. I'll leave your imaginations to work on what those colors actually mean ;)

We have walls!!

The drywaller subcontractors were here today. Finally!!! Their people skills left a little to be desired, but I'm so excited to see walls! They didn't do around the tub- I'm not sure what's going under the tile tub surround. My carpenter was here this morning to meet with them and answer their questions (thankfully). While he was here, he also moved the plug that was where our new closets in the bedroom are. We had a discussion about what to do, and then I realized there was plenty of room where the old closet was because that was now all drywall. Unfortunately, he only had so much cord to work with, so the outlet ended up being higher than usual, but since it's behind the door (when it's open), I don't think it's a huge deal.

Note: I particulary like our old tub in the middle of the kitchen (we're waiting for our next dumpster).

Drywall starts tomorrow.... seriously

The drywall company should be here tomorrow at 8:30am, not a moment too soon. Luckily, some work did happen today. Our carpenter framed and cut the holes for our his/hers closets in the bedroom. Originally, we were going to make one big closet, but the plumbing stack is right behind the wall in the space between these two closets, and we weren't about to move that just for another foot of closet. So now it's his and hers closets- fitting for the master bedroom. They are each 3 feet wide, which means we still gained 4 feet of closet in the room, plus an additional linen closet (where the old 2 ft closet was). That's a lot of closet!

It is a little strange to be standing in the kitchen and seeing my bed...

Inspector approved!

Yesterday the building inspector was here and he approved the framing and new header. PHEW! Drywall can now commence! I'm not sure when exactly the drywall person is coming, but it should be the next day or two at most. Hopefully the next post will have pictures of new walls!!

New Header

The carpenter and plumber did a lot of work yesterday and we have our new header, 3- 2X 4 support beam and plumbing in place to satisfy the inspector. Due to the new plumbing that lays on the front of the header, and the fact that we can't drill through the new supports to thread plumbing through, our drywall on this wall has to come out about 2 inches into the room to house the pipes. Our contractor is going "back to the drawing board" on his fancy computer to recalculate our cabinets with the 2 inch loss. It's most likely just going to make the "blind corner" (one of our cabinet corners isn't going to house space underneath, while the other one has a Lazy Susan in it) smaller.

The electrician is coming today to rewire a little bit where they had to displace things yesterday, and add a plug for our jet tub :) If all goes well, we'll be putting up drywall on Monday.

WATER!

Ok, as I was posting that last entry, I hear a rush of water and my carpenter say "What the hell??" Naturally, I run out and see water rushing down the inside of the wall of the entryway and onto the kitchen floor. We scramble and thankfully when I said the water shut off to the house is in the furnace room, the carpenter knew what I'm talking about and even what a shut-off valve looks like, because I don't. The water was shut off in a matter of 30 seconds, but water was of course gushing out for that time. My carpenter wasn't even in the kitchen when this happened, he was hauling tools inside and was just in the door. He said "I thought you were running the tub" and I said "I thought you started a load of laundry". The old pipe, which was slightly displaced yesterday just to see what they were working with, decided to come unsaudered at a joint and fell off the wall. Literally. The day is off to a terrific start! I guess we were right, those pipes were not worth saving.

Code Overload

Well, the building inspector was here yesterday and did decide to make us fix the big entryway between the kitchen and family room. He didn't seem to appreciate the fact that we weren't the idiots who cut into a load baring wall without putting in a header, or that we have made it better with the new post and the wall won't fall on our heads now. Nope. The wall is open, so it has to be brought up to code. Of course there is also plumbing running right in front of where the header has to go. Our contractor, carpenter, and another associate were pow-wowing in the kitchen shortly after the inspector left about how exactly this process is going to happen. I am happy to report that by the end of the day yesterday, the carpenter had a new temporary support wall up, the plumber was scheduled and the engineered wood was ordered. I learned that engineered wood is stronger, and therefore you can have a smaller header, but the wood must have a stamp on it, visible to the inspector, that says it's certified engineered wood. The game plan for today, is to get the old wood of the non-existent header out, put the new one in, and get the plumber back to replumb along the wall. We've determined the old pipes won't handle a transplant, so we're putting in the new plastic pipes as we have in the rest of the remodel. If all goes well, the inspector will even come back by close of business today! Wish us luck!