The Rest of the Hall

We accomplished two things this weekend. The first thing we did was assemble the crib. The second was to finish the demo and framing in the hallway. The demo wasn't particularly hard, but the framing was a little tricky.

We ran out of 2x4's and to save on time, money and materials, we reused some of the old cedar 2x4's that we've saved from previous demo. The old 2x4's have slightly different dimensions than new 2x4's and some are slightly warped.

Here's a panoramic stitched photo of the water heater closet.

Bamboo Floor Preview

There was a sale on the flooring we're going to use in the living room area so we bought it. Here's a little preview of what the board look like.

We dropped off my spouse's family rocking chair this morning at an upholstery shop. It needs new fabric, but it also needs a new runner (the old one broke off and is now missing). The upholsterer is going to take the fabric off of it and then the rocking chair will go to a furniture restoration specialist where it will get a new runner and get refinished. Then the chair will come back to the upholsterer. We picked out a nice medium blue fabric with embroidered dots of brown/yellow. The whole process will likely take 3 to 5 weeks. We'll post pictures when it's done!

Demo(n) in the Hall

Before I started working on the hall closet, I finished cutting the drywall in the doorway between the den and the utility/entry room.

The next work to do was to demo the hall wall to make room for the doorways that will give access to the washer, dryer, and water heater.

This is what the area looked like before I took a sawzall to it.

And this is what it looked like after the saw had its fill (more next weekend).

Big difference! There are two things that my spouse and I have noticed about this new void. First it seems to have made our bedroom door not so tight in its frame, and secondly it creates a sense of doom when we walk down the hall at night without the lights on. We like the non-sticking door. We do not like the dark forbidding feeling. We're pretty sure drywall and doors will take care of the dread.

WMD (Walls Mostly Done)

Last weekend we wired the heater and tried to get all of the drywall up on the walls before the end of the day Sunday. We almost made it. We had to make the most use of the brother-in-law before he left (which happens tomorrow). Drywall installation requires both tall and short work plus lifting and cutting. These are all things he's become accustomed to.

We really got a lot done considering how much time we had (there were a few errands and emergencies that interrupted us such as car batteries and washing machines). More about washing machines later.

One of the things that didn't get finished was cutting out the arch in the doorway. We just ran out of energy and time. The doorway now reminds us of the movie Being John Malkovich.

The other thing we didn't do is fully seal up the closet wall. That was on purpose, though. We still need to demo and reframe the hall side of the closet for the doors, and it will be nice not to have to walk all the way around.

Here's a picture of a funny moment (that's probably not at all funny to anybody else).

The b-in-l was using a tool belt to hold all the drywall screws. I had bought some more screws (in a smaller box) and put them in the larger empty box so that we would know where to find them. The b-in-l ran out of screws (in his tool belt) and asked if I'd bought more screws and where they were. I said, "In the box." He didn't understand or didn't believe that there were more screws in the box the he had emptied earlier in the day. To prove that there were indeed screws in the box, I handed them to him. This photo captured either the moment of realization or the expression of incredulity at my choice of screw storage location (I'm not sure which).