On Monday evening, after a crazy time of chasing the two steers, Ed stayed up late and finished the fireplace. I love the result!
Tuesday was the day I was waiting for. No, not my birthday. I mean, yes, it was my birthday, but by the mid-30's, birthdays are just not that exciting!
No, what I was really looking forward to was the removal of our dining room wall to open up to the new addition. I knew it would be lots of dirt, dust and inconvenience, but it would be one step closer to being done with this project. I told one friend that it was somewhat like being pregnant. Eventually, I am so tired of being pregnant and so eager to hold my baby that I'm willing to go through labor.
All the furniture was moved out of the dining room and a double layer of plastic was put up in the kitchen. This shrunk my kitchen space and cut off the entrance to the back door and the basement. I go to the basement frequently as my laundry, freezers, food storage, and, this week, even 28 baby chicks are down there. Now I had to go out the front door and down around the garage door to get to the basement. I couldn't believe how often I stood in my kitchen confused on where I was going and how I was to get there. Maybe a sign of advancing age?
But the plastic kept almost all the dust out of the kitchen when they tore out the patio doors and the dining room wall.
Ed asked my brothers to work several days on the project in hopes that the house wouldn't be in this crazy upheaval for too long. I appreciate his concern for his wife's sanity.
Some of the activities on Tuesday...
Drywalling.
Putting in the door.
Building the mantel.
Putting up wood bead-board paneling. Wood is more expensive then dry wall but this was one of my choices in hopes of having a practical room that can withstand lots of use (and abuse). I can't believe how bad the dry wall in our living room looks.
In the evening, my parents brought supper over for my birthday. There was no room in the house to eat, the rain ended the plans to eat outside, so we swept the sawdust in the addition and ate there. It was fun to eat around the new fireplace and imagine many more great family events in that room!
On Wednesday, I left the house. Being cooped up in this crowded house (did I say that it was raining nearly every day this week?) with loud sawing and hammering as background noise, was taking it's tole. I'm not sure what the men did all day. The electician was back, and more dry wall was finished. The insulation in the ceiling was blown in and some boards were planed.
The mud room was paneled.
The porch posts were placed.
Thursday was more of the same dry wall and paneling.
Work on the porch continued.
In the evening, Ed placed bricks around the porch posts.
Friday, the final sanding of the dry wall was finished. The porch was nearly completed. The wood for the porch posts, mantel and for wrapping the porch beams is walnut. The lumber all came from my Dad's woods. It was sawn into lumber by a cousin's sawmill and dried at another cousin's kiln. If you know what walnut costs, you can appreciate the huge cost savings!
With the dry walling finished, I could finally help with this project. I'm no carpenter but I can vacuum up the dust and wash down the walls in preparation for paint. Part way through the afternoon, my daughter mentioned that I had a lot of gray hair and looked "old". I know I'm turning gray and just had a birthday, but I didn't think it was THAT bad. But later when I happened to glance at myself in the mirror, I discovered I really had turned gray...from dry wall dust! I'm rather thankful that most of it could wash out and my daughter and I shared a laugh over how she had been fooled into thinking it was my real hair color!
After we put the children to bed, Ed and I painted on the primer. Ed's brother gave us this paint stick EZ Twist
. The paint is sucked up into the handle and out into the roller. It was a huge time saver and by midnight we had the whole room primed. A late night was worth it to not have the help of children while painting. In our younger (and more foolish) days, staying up til midnight on a Friday night wouldn't have been thought unusal and we would have had less to show for it!
On Saturday, Ed laid more brick around the porch posts and I painted a few spots on the wall to test paint color. I'm so indecisive when it comes to paint color. I always plan to step out into a bolder color then chicken out and choose some strain off cream/off-white! I liked this paint shade well enough to paint the dining room during the children's naptime. The new room is still in the undecided stage. I think I'll be getting another paint sample before we make up our mind. Ed finished painting all the ceiling. Even with his snazzy paint stick,
the vaulted ceiling was no fun!
Ed's nephews planed a huge stack of lumber, also from my Dad's trees which will be turned into the trim. There is advantages of being a twin! This is a two man job and would have taken Ed a ridiculous amount of time alone. Can you tell we are grateful for family? We are going to owe some people big time by the time this project is done!
So that is one week in the life of a home addition project!
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