More Drywall Progress

While we did not meet the goal of getting the drywall done and a floor down before JJ started crawling, we have made a lot of progress!

JJ started crawling and got his first two teeth within a week of his half birthday. It's been exciting around here!

Flooring and Drywall

All drywall is up on the first floor now! This is a welcome change - we don't have to look at insulation anymore. It is still a work in progress to get the mudding done but we'll keep plugging away. We got the ceiling in the new office taped, mudded, sanded, primed, and painted and the lights installed, so it's nice and bright in there.

Josh had to replace the subfloor where our old kitchen used to be. The original linoleum stuck to the plywood, so pulling it up was damaging the structure of the subfloor. We have to have a level, intact subfloor to install our "resilient flooring" system on top of, so it had to be replaced. This feels like one of those "you have to take a step back before you can move forward" kind of things, but it's great to be done. JJ was particularly entertained by Josh's method of installing the new Advantech panels. It involved Josh jumping on them, much to JJ's delight.

One Less Wall

One wall that needed to be replaced remained on the first floor... until last week. This wall was behind a big stone fireplace that we removed a couple years ago. When it came down, we decided to keep it down. With this wall gone, the first floor feels incredibly open. We are still working out how to reduce transfer of sound and dust from the basement shop upstairs, since we used to be able to close a door and be done with it! 

 

Before and After - The basement wall, viewed from the far side of the house (where the kitchen is now, see right). 

LED's Installed - Including a Dimmer

Just like in the living room addition, the addition over the creepy basement room now has LED lights, and it is super bright! Josh also got a dimmer installed on the LED's in the living room. The dimmer is great - it lets us set the mood for a cozy night at home or have a lot of bright light to see what we're doing when JJ is playing or when we're folding laundry. 

Up Next - Insulation and More Mudding

There's still plenty to do (as always!). This weekend Josh is working on sealing the ceilings in the additions, then he'll blow in the cellulose insulation we had delivered a few weeks ago. That should make a big difference in how warm it feels, plus it will prevent some of the big icicles we've gotten on the edge of the roofs. We'll keep working on taping and mudding the drywall so that we can sand and paint and get the floor down. In the meantime, we'll keep an eagle eye on our increasingly mobile baby!