progress report: week 21

Last week, the drywallers were busy mudding and taping. They are doing an awesome job and it was so rewarding to come home each night and see something new. Bailey, on the other hand, stayed home to supervise. Uh oh…who’s got drywall paws?

After a failed craigslist and consignment effort, the ol’ piano finally got rolled out to the carport, where it will await an unknown fate. Apparently, no one wants pianos. We bought the piano off craigslist (from a frat house no less) about 5 years ago. Kyle spent some time fixing her up, but since we bought our house she’s been pretty neglected. We also don’t have a good spot for it anymore and those tiny wheels would do some serious harm to the cork flooring. So Kyle fabricated a plywood pathway (on top of the existing plywood ramp – this thing is heavy!) Fortunately, there were no runaway piano incidents or piano maulings.

And here’s a glimpse of the mud and tape job, before sanding.

With cooler temperatures over the weekend, we rewired the thermostat to get the heat going and help the mud dry.

Kyle also re-plumbed for the sink and dishwasher (we had to unhook the previous connections so the sheetrock could go up). There was a bit of math involved,  but like a good architect, Kyle just sketched it out on the wall. (Normally, we would have waited until the cabinets and sink were in, but it had already been two weeks without a dishwasher and I couldn’t store anymore dirty dishes in the microwave!)

Last night, I got the itch to start building base cabinets. I figured that if I build one a night, I’ll reduce the risk of incurring a particleboard cut or suffer from screwdriver fatigue.  The frames are easy enough to assemble (I started with the corner cabinet), but I really hate installing the back panel. All those little nails! Seriously, who really uses a hammer and individual nails anymore? Kyle (who would, if given the opportunity, use only power tools to assemble IKEA products) recommended that I just use the brad nailer. It worked like a charm! One down, four to go!

Oh Bailey, I was just kidding when I told you I was building a dog house.

Well, maybe we won’t put the carousel in just yet.

We also started to gather up our painting supplies! Honestly, we are both still burned out from all the exterior priming and painting we did last summer, but as soon as the 2nd coat of paint is dry we can start putting everything back together and that is our motivation. Even though we will have a good chunk of masking to do, it should go pretty quickly since we’re doing everything in the same color (BM’s “super white”) and there isn’t much trim to work around.

So this week is all about prepping for the big 3-day weekend. Time to whip this house into shape!