Kind of a Milestone Reached

You bet, there is still plenty to do, but there is something about getting the sheet rock all back in place and closed in that makes it "kind of a milestone". In goes the last piece!! Yahoo!!

I had two days off in a row, yesterday and today, and I decided I really wanted to get the sheet rock finished so I started out with framing in the skylight. - It was sure nice to have Eric's nail gun set these last couple weeks. That helped a lot with putting in extra boards and getting any last touch framing done. - Once it was framed in I went ahead and sheet rocked it. I knew that the side walls would be a challenge because I wanted to do them in one piece and they were a pretty weird shape. Thanks to Jeanne's help in measuring and cutting it went in perfectly the first time. You don't have to look very close to see that there was a time span between the photo with just the framing and the photo with the sheet rock in.



In the first photo below you can clearly see the new sheet rock because of the different color. We certainly did not have to use green board, but that was what we had left over and it definitely does not hurt to use it. In the second picture you see the rest of the kitchen done in the green board. We only used green board because we are going to be putting wet stuff on it to put the back splash of stone on it.

Note: Just because we are in the middle of a remodel doesn't mean we can't find a place for the beautiful art our grandchildren send us! :-)

Update on Kitchen

Sadly, not much has been happening this week. We started out with a bang. I had Tuesday off so Monday evening and Tuesday I got busy on the wiring and then hanging and wiring the canned lights. We had quite a time figuring exactly where we wanted them. Before we put up the ceiling dry wall we wanted to be sure they worked and so we tested them and they worked perfect the first time.


Tuesday Evening Melissa and Jeff came over again and we put up the ceiling. We could not have done it without help and we sure appreciate them being there every time. As you look at the picture below, you see what looks like a ragged edge or fringe along the edge where the new sheetrock meets the old. Since I was joining new with old I decided to use a trick that Dustin taught me years ago and instead of cutting the edge I peeled the extra sheetrock off to leave that edge which will be laid out over the old stuff to try to create an invisible seam. Before we put up the new sheetrock we tried to peel off some of the old paint and texturing along the edge of the old work. I'll let you know how it works. Tuesday was the only day we worked on it this week because of my work schedule and I had a lesson to give on Sunday and a client's wedding to prepare for coming up in a couple weeks.

I have all morning both tomorrow and Tuesday so I'm looking forward to getting quite a bit more done, inclucing getting the last electrical box in - I've been waiting trying to figure out exactly where it needs to be - and getting the sky light tunnel built in. For some reason I've had a real mental battle with the best way to do that.

Watch for more updates.

I Promised Pictures

This post won’t make much sense unless you read the previous post. Hopefully this will help you understand what’s been happening around our house the last couple days. As you can see by the first picture, we actually started some work before it was taken since the original wood frame and light fixture in the center of kitchen have been down for months because the florescent fixtures were going out and we knew we would be doing this so we couldn’t bring ourselves to replace the bad ones. In addition the light over the sink has been disassembled for some time.


(Click on any photo to see it full size)

On Wednesday morning we started by taking out the upper cupboards and storing them downstairs. In the second photo you can see the fridge is also gone and all the stuff from inside is on the counter.



As my previous post indicated, one of the biggest time users was getting the attic insulation removed. After hours of blowing it around and then sucking it up with the shop vac and moving it to different parts of the attic, we then started removing some of the drywall off the ceiling and blowing it away and then sucking it up and bagging it to be put back in later. Melissa thought that we had had so much fun she wanted to try it too.



Finally you can see the kitchen with almost all of the dropped ceiling removed. I say almost because if you look closely you will see that some of the 2X6s remain with wires running into them. Before I could remove the boards I had to take the wires out so I could put them down through the tops of the walls. The final picture shows with the drywall removed and the electrical boxes etc. exposed.



Again, I can't thank Melissa and Jeff enough. They truly saved us on this one.

It Has Begun

Almost a year ago Jeanne and I decided to do some kitchen remodeling, including a sky light and tearing out the dropped ceiling. "After all, tearing out a dropped ceiling can't be too bad, it's just a bunch of 2X4s with drywall stuck to them bringing the ceiling down about 12 inches" He said, stupidly, in his mind. A couple weeks ago you saw the post about the best lit attic in Utah. That was the beginning, yesterday we started taking out the dropped ceiling. First we had to take all the cupboards down - just the upper ones, and then the fun began. I did not count on the fact that we had a home built by Craythorne Construction. We bought the house partially because it is a Craythorne built home, and we knew his reputation for quality. This dropped ceiling is done almost entirely in 2X6s not 2X4s and it was solid as a rock. I had heard from at least three sources that one of the biggest challenges is the blown in insulation. Guess what, one of the biggest challenges is the blown in insulation. Today is the end of the second day of working extremely hard to get that out and get ready to start putting it back together. As I look back on the last two days I can't believe how much we got done so far.

However!!! We would not be anywhere near as far as we are without the WONDERFUL help of Melissa and Jeff!!!

Not only did they come and help for several hours both yesterday and today, tonight, Jeff brought Delicious Leger's sandwiches, soup and drinks which gave us supper tonight and will give Jeanne and I lunch tomorrow. I cannot tell you how much we appreciate them.

Yes, we took pictures and some day soon, when I'm better rested, I'll post some. Check back often.

Utah's Best Lit Attic by Scott

Some time back we decided we were going to remodel our kitchen and take out the dropped ceiling. While we were at it there were a couple other changes we needed to make, a big one was to add a sky light to the dining area. We've complained about the low light level in the kitchen/dining since we moved in. This past April we went and bought almost all of the stuff we needed to do the kitchen and the sky light Earlier this week I decided that we may not have too many days left where the weather would allow us to get up and cut a hole in the roof for the new sky light. I read the instructions a couple times and decided I'd do it Thursday afternoon. After all it should only take a couple or three hours to just cut the hole and install it. I wasn't going to put in the whole thing, though I'm sure that would only take a couple or three more hours, but we didn't have the drywall yet. Somewhere around 11:00 yesterday morning I got out the ladder and went up into the attic to take a look around. Too make a very long story a little shorter when it got dark last night all we had was a big hole in the roof with the wood to put the sky light on, with quite a bit of bare roof around it, and it was threatening to rain. All I could do was rest the sky light on the wood to cover the hole and pray that the rain missed us at least until today when I could get back up there. After all there was only 30 minutes to an hour's work left to do. The Lord did bless us and the rain went around us. I was on the roof about 9 o'clock this morning and done about 1:30, with no break for lunch or anything. I was up and down that ladder so many times, on my knees removing and replacing shingles and a dozen other things. Even with knee pads my knees are red and raw. It would be hard to find a muscle that doesn't hurt. I could go on and on, but I won't. I'll just tell you that putting in your very first sky light and trying not to leave any place to leak in the roof is a lot less fun than I thought.