Dry Wall, Light Switches, Washers and Countertops

Well, here we are on Friday and I haven’t given a bit of an update since Monday.  Click through if you’d like to read on because I have a lot to get out.

I haven’t updated partly because my computer decided to die on Tuesday morning and I’ve been in the office the last two days and this morning is the first chance I’ve had to actually get it from my dad and turn it on.  And if you’re really astute, yes, I wrote my American Idol recap on my iPhone.  In the car.  And maybe on the Interstate.  Scotty for the win!

The big hurdle this week was on Wednesday when the power company came to run the new electrical line to the new end of the house.  We have an all new electrical box and meter and everything is properly running off of it!  Once that was done on Wednesday, it opened up the floodgates.  The old electrical box, siding, plywood, etc. got moved off the wall from the end of the house, plywood was able to be properly installed on the floor and yes, the dry wall project started yesterday.

I wasn’t really expecting any sort of dry wall dust mess until they started sanding next week but I guess when you are cutting 50 pieces of dry wall with a saw it generates QUITE A BIT of dust.  I got a text yesterday afternoon at the office “Our house is a disaster.”  Followed by “my OCD levels are high. don’t complain.”   I came home to find a lot of dust everywhere and not much we could do about it since the actual sanding is happening in 3 days.  I made the beds sleepable and vacuumed the floors and pretty much left the rest.

I’m leaving out a bunch of drama this week like how the light switches ALL had to be moved at 10pm Wednesday night since none of them were at a standard height and oh, how Scott had to rewire our light switches AFTER the dry wall went up last night since we realized a door move left them in the hall OUTSIDE our bedroom.

Oh, and how about we add in that our washing machine QUIT WORKING yesterday so not only can I not keep up with regular laundry but I can not wash any of these blankets getting smothered with dust. (thanks to my mother who came over at 10 last night to get 3 loads of laundry for me)

And while I’m on a roll, I have spent all week trying to figure out a countertop for the vanity and so far have not had much luck.

To say this week has been challenging is quite an understatement.  I literally curled up in the back seat of my van during my lunch break at work yesterday and kept telling myself to QUIT THINKING ALREADY for 45 minutes.

I feel a little like we’re at the pinnacle of this project and if we could just get through this dry wall and I could figure out the countertop, it’d all be downhill.  To be honest, until then, our stress level is pretty high around here.  May is going to feel like a BREEZE, YA’LL.

Whew, thank you for letting me get all that out.

So here we go with some pictures.  As I thought, once the walls went up, it’s more difficult to get pictures but I hope this gives you a sense of where we’re at with the project.

The girls’ room had their window walled in and the new closet cut out:

The new hallway that previously was our closets.  You can see the closet lines on the floor

Does that fireplace make anyone else super excited??  Wheeee!!!

Looking from the bedroom to the bathroom.  Straight ahead will be the toilet room.  Yes, that door is awfully small.  No, there really isn’t anything to be done about it.

From the closet looking back across the bathroom.  Vanity will be to the left and straight ahead is the linen closet.

Shower!

Standing from one end of the closet.  I love that I can even stand IN my closet.  Not really possible right with the one I have right now.

More closet.  Scott’s side.

Below is part of the new hallway.  The painted part with the writing was part of our old bedroom wall.  You can see where they put dry wall up where we had to close in some of my closet to the left there.  We changed that edge on the right to have an angle so it flowed a little better.

Other side of that opening.  Again, another small angle on the corner.

And finally, a shot of the new wall and old window space in our bedroom.

So today a crew is putting mud and tape on all this.  We have through the weekend for it to dry and then Monday is the big sanding day, assuming the big storms Saturday don’t cause too much humidity and slow down the drying process.  I expect we will empty out the rooms as much as possible Sunday and then head over to my parents for the night because wouldn’t you know the kids will be off of school Monday for spring break.

So at this point I think I have some prayer requests.  Yes, prayer requests.

• That I will find a countertop that we both will love and goes with the floor and shower tile we already have sitting out there.
• We will not lose our sanity through the dust on Monday.
• I am able to choose a paint color by next week that will not require a new color in two weeks.
• I can pick out carpet to be installed the week after that I will love to walk around in and be tempted to sleep on.  Yes, that is my goal.
• Our washer gets fixed.

God bless any of you that have stuck through to the end of this post. Thank you for any prayers and I hope you have a great weekend!