Weekend of Craziness #1

As you know, we have a Kitchen deadline. I made a schedule. It's taped to the cabinets in the Kitchen, to taunt us.

This weekend was Weekend #1. And it was pretty crazy. On the schedule for this weekend was "Finish the drywall in the Kitchen (under the windows and on the beams), patch/sand the drywall, install the window casing, paint the Living Room and finish the beadboard backsplash".

I was pretty angry last week because we went on a vacation/business trip (which is why we didn't get any work done last weekend) to Minnesota and when we got back I had a TON of work to catch up on. Which meant that I didn't have time to finish the paint removal in the Living Room. (Not angry about the trip, which was amazing... angry that I didn't get to finish everything in time..) So before the weekend started we were already behind (I was going to have my SILs paint all the Living Room trim and woodwork).

But, we still managed to get a lot done. Not everything on the schedule, but still a lot.

By the end of the weekend, we managed to get the drywall up on one vertical beam (only one left to go!), and under the windows. The fireplace got two more coats of paint, plus the cabinet door got painted. The casing of the door opening between the Hall/Living Room and Kitchen got painted. The casing of the Dining Room opening got painted. 80% of the walls got patched, sanded and primed. The disconnected electrical outlet from under the windows got removed. The door to the stairs got scraped and taken down. The chicks got updated nesting boxes (they destroyed the ones I put in a couple weeks ago.. the new ones are screwed into the shelf.. they're Gladys-proof!). And the lawn got cut (it looked like we had a lawn service.. two lawn mowers going at once!).

Pretty successful weekend, even though we didn't finish everything on the schedule. We did do some stuff that was on there on other days though, so I think it evens out. I don't mind that the Living Room didn't get done. That was my fault, because of Minnesota and work. Couldn't be avoided. And the Living Room technically isn't part of the Big Schedule of October 2011. So who cares. It can be done in November.

We could have definitely gotten more done if we had been home last weekend to do some of this. We had 2 (3 on Saturday) extra helpers, but most of the time we didn't have any work for them because we had to wait for other stuff to happen first. Like, if we could have done the drywall and sanding, and/or the window trim last weekend, they could have helped me paint it all this weekend.

I have to say though... on Saturday we were all amazed by the Hall/Living Room opening casing.. it being white now (as opposed to half stained, half plain wood like it has been) made a huge difference! But that was nothing compared to white, primed walls by Sunday afternoon! It finally looks like we're almost there!

And on top of all that, we managed to go to two fairs, watch TV, have a nice big breakfast and wash and put away all the dishes from the whole weekend. We're pretty awesome :)

We're Back in the 21st Century!

Since the end of July, we've had no power in the back half of our house. It's felt like a lot longer than that. For about a month we didn't use our downstairs bathroom, until R decided to run an extension cord to a lamp that's sitting on a pile of boxes. We had to use flashlights to get up the backstairs at night. There's a long exterior-use extension cord running from the Guest Bedroom through my Office and into the Twilight Room to power either R's computer or the air conditioner. Vacuuming was not easy. You had to duck walking down the stairs (well, duck even more than you had to before) so you wouldn't hit your head on the wires coming out of the ceiling (don't worry.. it's not like they were live or anything). Summer '11 was a crazy one for us and if we were home for an entire weekend, R's time was taken up by things that were a little bit more pressing, such as cutting the grass (pretty much an all day job) or building the coop or preparing and then cleaning up after the hurricane.

But... we have a goal now. R's birthday is smack dab in the middle of October and we always have a family party (his family lives in a different state and we try to do as many things as we can down here so both families can be together because as uncharacteristic as this is, they actually like each other). My mom brought up a good point when I mentioned the party to her. "You can't have everyone (mostly extended family, aunts, uncles, cousins) over here with it looking exactly the same way it did in January for your birthday party!" *sigh* Once again, mom's right. While it's not like we've sat around doing nothing for the past 8 months, the things we've done wouldn't really be noticeable to "normal" people. "Oh, you added another coat of paint in here? Looks the same to me!" "You updated this outlet? Woww....." "Is that a new chimney cap I see? Impressive!" "A garden? A chicken coop? Is that all you've done this year?" (Sense the sarcasm?) The main thing people will notice is that the Kitchen basically looks exactly the same. Yeah, I've unpacked more boxes, organized the cabinets, painted the fireplace, did patching/etc on the walls. But the overall picture is exactly the same. I can't have that!! So the point of this story is... by the end of October, that Kitchen needs to be done. Done as in floor: installed. Walls: painted. Trim: installed and painted. Fireplace: painted and decorated. New light fixtures: installed. With that huge room done it'll make a huge difference! Plus it'll be a nice room to sit in and eat/talk with our relatives, as opposed to a half finished, dirty room.

The old light switch at the bottom of the stairs. It was only 34 cents! Look at that scary wiring!

The first step was to get all of the drywall up, taped and sanded. However, a couple months ago R took down some of the drywall under the window (while I was crying "now we're going backwards! :'( ). He had good reason. When I was in the Kitchen cooking, every once in awhile I'd hear crackling sounds. We traced the sounds back to the outlets under the windows. This scared the pyrophobiac (is this a word?) in me. R immediately turned off that breaker and a month later took down the drywall and tried to fix it. Long story short, he wasn't able to easily fix it. And then the Crazy Summer happened and it got put off until this weekend. I asked him to put up the drywall around the posts near the windows and he said that he would do that when he put the drywall back under the windows. So he fixed the outlets first. He had thoroughly researched it and knew exactly what to do this time. Piece of cake. Finished in about 2 hours. Then he was on an electrical roll. He moved on to the hall light (the point of this post. Finally). This wasn't as easy...
I'll admit, I wasn't there while he was fixing it, so I'm not 100% sure of exactly what he did or in what order. (Pyrophobia, remember?) All I know is that apparently what is in our walls is a mess. He cleaned it up where he could, adding new wire where he could. I flipped breakers when he told me to. He had blown-in insulation fall all over him when the plaster ceiling broke a little while he was drilling through it. He installed two (well, three really because he replaced the one in our bedroom while he was up there) new light switches and two new temporary light fixtures. This hall/staircase isn't at the top of our to-do list, it's maybe 4th after the Kitchen. But it will be re-done in the near future. And when that time comes, new nicer light fixtures will be installed. For now, it's just nice to finally have light fixtures in the steep, scary staircase we the most. And it's a little easier to sleep at night knowing that the wiring is a little safer. Someday... in the far future... we'll replace all of the wiring. But that's a huge job that we couldn't do ourselves, which means it'll have to wait :)

Slight Electrical Problem

Last night when R was coming up to bed, he turned on the light at the bottom of the back staircase. Only it didn't turn on. He was a little concerned because the lightbulbs in the two fixtures attached to this switch were newish (less than a year old) CFL bulbs. They shouldn't even be close to the end of their life yet. So this morning he decided to check it out. And we're both glad he did.

The first thing he realized was that the light fixture wasn't attached to the ceiling very well. In fact, hardly at all. When he took it down, about 20 acorns and other miscellaneous "stuff" fell out of the ceiling. 

He ended up taking down the drywall in this part of the ceiling because he wanted to clean out all of the acorns and debris, and also get a better look at the wiring. This staircase is one of the areas we're planning on completely gutting so I had no problem with this.The drywall would have come down eventually anyways.

R went to Lowe's and bought a new electrical box and a simple $1 light bulb holder similar to this. We figured it would be fine as a temporary fixture until we could get to gutting and remodeling the whole staircase. However, just like everything in our house, it just wasn't that simple. After a couple hours of staring and testing, R decided he wasn't comfortable enough messing with the wiring. It appears that it wasn't done correctly (in fact, there's all black burn marks on the back of the drywall and wood showing that the wires/fixture got too hot) in the first place, and some of the wires were frayed, so we both decided it would be best to have a professional look at it. Until then, we don't have any electricity in the back half of the house (both upstairs and downstairs). The only room with power back there is the upstairs bathroom and the attic. So we've been using a lot of flashlights and extension cords :)