Four Hour Fix-Ups: January 2015

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Living Room Progress

Travel, a lingering cold, a 24 hour stomach bug, and life has kept me from blogging about the living room progress! In between those things I have been working on it though! I finally finished mudding the ceiling - I got stuck there for a while because every time I inspected the ceiling I kept finding more things to fix. More mud - more drying time - more sanding - more priming. I finally just had to stop the perfectionism, because the ceiling really did look great! It was to the point that I had the lights off in the room and was using a spotlight type lamp to identify the imperfections.

I put a total of two priming coats on the ceiling and then I painted on the first coat of ceiling paint, which I had tinted to the Benjamin Moore color 'classic gray.' When I saw that color contrasted with the white primer color, I thought maybe I made a mistake at first. It looked dramatic! Then it dried and it looked just perfect!

I remember when I was a kid I wondered why people always painted their ceilings white. I thought it looked so boring and always thought a little color would be fun. The classic gray tint really makes the room feel so warm...I just can't wait to paint the trim and walls now! Soon all of my ceilings will be that color. I'm so grateful to my friend Wendy for sharing her paint colors with me!

Today my dad came over and helped me re-hang the trim. I got to use a nail gun - pretty cool! Tomorrow we are going to buy the extra trim pieces and then we will hang it all up tomorrow, caulk it all, and we will be done! ***Update - we hung the extra trim 2 1/2 inches below the crown molding original trim - we chose the distance based upon how it was done in the dining room and formal living room. We used a huge power saw, made a spacing block to ensure we kept the proper distance, added all new molding to the hallway because it did not have any before...it was fun. Here are some pictures of the progress...

Monday, January 19, 2015

Another Post About Mud!

Haha! I bet you are just dying to read another blog entry about mudding - am I right?!? Well, I'm so excited to be writing one - so read on friends! Today we put on the true second mud coat - it is the coat that my dad said is his least favorite. Luckily he didn't tell me that until we were about 3/4 through with the job or it would have been worse than it already was. It was not my favorite either. My arms sure did get a workout though. My neck and my back feel so sore from all of the awkward contortions!

We were just going over our tapered and butt seams again - but this time with a pretty thick coat. The technique is to apply a generous amount to either side of the taped lines, exceeding a few inches beyond the tape line on either side. The mud is thick and when you apply a thick coat it takes some arm strength to have your arms up over your head applying these coats! Then we took a 14 inch trowel and skimmed off the excess on both sides of the tape lines, being careful to take just the right amount off and leaving behind long, smooth lines. My dad is a perfectionist (and I wondered where I got those tendencies from) to a point. With mud he says you really can't mess around with it too much. It is how people end up with a bad mud job. So we did the best we could, which ended up looking really good! It took about 2 hours to do the entire room.

Tomorrow my job is to mud any screw holes and lines that need filling, as well as to scrape off any pieces of dried mud that are hanging down. Dad said he would stop by after he is done at work and check on how I did. I am excited for the priming stage because it will really start to look good then.

After we finished the living room mud job, we put a second skim coat on the small hallway that I scraped the texture off of. I forgot to mention yesterday that my dad put a great first skim coat on that hallway. He did it instead of letting me do it for two reasons: 1 - he was trying to see if it looked like it would cover the texture or if we would need to hang 1/4 inch drywall over the existing piece, and 2 - because he said it took a great deal of arm strength to get that first coat on - what are you saying about my arm strength, dad??? It turns out that the skim coat covered the texture perfectly!

I was grateful that he did it yesterday because I was dog tired when it was time to do the hallway. I was dog tired today too but he had me do it...which is good because doing it myself built up some confidence and I learned a lot! Similar to the living room ceiling, I applied pretty thick coats and then skimmed off the excess with the 14 inch trowel. However, I did the entire ceiling which was unlike what I did in the living room. I think we will have one more coat for the hall and then it will be gentle scraping, filling indentions, and sanding time. I am going to put crown molding up in the hall to make it look a little nicer.

Butt Seams

My kids love that we did the 'butt' seams yesterday. :-) They were actually a big help. They helped me measure the length of the seams, cut the drywall tape, lay the dropcloths, and line up chairs across the room to make the job a little easier. Very helpful people!

My dad said the butt seams were a little more difficult, but honestly, I didn't see a difference between them and the tapered seams. The process was the same...and in fact, may have been easier because they were shorter.

I filled in the screw holes with mud once again and we were done. Didn't take long at all and now it is time to wait - the waiting is hard for me. I'd rather be getting it done but these things take time and we have to wait for the mud to dry before putting on the next coat.

This part of the process has been:
1- Tape & mud the tapered seams; wait 24 hours for it to dry.
2- Tape & mud the butt seams; wait 24 hours for it to dry.
3- Mud everything again; wait 24 hours for it to dry.
4- Mud everything again; wait 24 hours for it to dry.

Today we are doing step 3.

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Mudding Drywall

I dropped off the map for a while so we could take a fun and action packed family trip to Florida. A wise person once told me that when the kids are there it's a trip; when it's just mom and dad going away, now THAT'S a vacation. So a trip it was - very fun though. The kids got to see grandparents and they made new friends; I was reunited with a cousin (and her sweet and talented daughter) that I had not seen in 15 years or so.

We have a timeshare deal we signed up for about 9 years ago when we were in Cancun, Mexico. Since it's not possible for us to take a family of 5 to Cancun right now, we trade in our weeks there to stay at fun condos right here in the US. We have stayed at several different places, but this one was my favorite one so far. It is an older resort that has been very well taken care of and recently renovated. The landscaping is impeccable...and the pool is heated and open 24/7. I found myself in love with the updates they made inside the condo and the furnishings/art - yet I was disappointed that they left the popcorn ceilings! I stared at that popcorn and thought, 'why didn't they just take it down?' It wasn't even a stomp ceiling and would have been so easy for them to scrape off. Well, popcorn ceilings and all, I had a great trip and I came home ready to work on my living room!

My dad came over tonight to teach me how to tape and mud drywall. I was nervous - as I have been for everything I've done so far. BUT - it really wasn't bad at all. I grew up watching my dad use drywall mud all the time! So I knew the basic motion and it wasn't completely foreign to me. We used two trowels - one to apply and hold the mud; the other to clean it off. My dad said a big part of mudding is keeping your trowel neat. You don't want mud on the wrong side of the trowel at all and you want to keep it in the middle of the trowel. I also learned that it is a good idea to clean up (smooth out) the bucket of mud every once in a while if you leave the lid open while you work, because it is not good to get chunks of hardened mud mixed in with the soft mud that is used on the drywall.

My living room has 4 tapered seams and 5 butt seams (I think that is what he called them). Tonight we only worked on the tapered seams because my dad said those are easier and he wanted to start out easy. He mudded and taped half of the first line for me so that I could see how it is done. Basically you spread mud along the seam (and on either side of the seam) all the way across until you get to the end of the seam. Then you carefully start at one edge and lay the drywall tape centered on the seam and use a dry trowel to gently swipe all along the taped seam until you get to the other end of the room. He is very particular about no bubbles and keeping tape lines straight. Also particular about not leaving clumps of mud anywhere because you really want a nice clean line that you won't have to do a lot of sanding on later. He taught me that many people try to make it look too nice on the first coat and they end up totally messing up their mudding job. So he says to get the mud on there the best you can, keeping it clean and then STOP! Don't keep messing with the mud. Oh, and if you happen to drop it on the carpet - just leave it there until it dries...then it will flake right off.

He helped me do the next two tapered seams and then I did the fourth, and final one, all on my own. He complimented my work (when you get a compliment from him you know you did a good job) and then he gave me the assignment of covering the drywall screws and missed stud holes with mud. If the hole has pieces hanging down off the ceiling, you take the handle of the trowel or the handle of a screwdriver and push up on the hole gently until it makes a slight impression in the other direction. Easy to fill with mud at that point. I had a lot of missed stud holes so I had a lot of that type of repair to do but it was easy and didn't take long at all. He taught me the method to fill the missed holes and drywall screws with mud - very important once again to get the mud on there, clean up extra mud so there is less sanding - and STOP!

Tomorrow he is coming over to help me tape and mud the butt seams. Then I'll have to apply two more coats of mud and sand it all smooth.

I really enjoy the satisfaction of this type of project and although I am not yet finished, I am really looking forward to a kitchen ceiling renovation soon!

One important tip - don't forget to wash off your trowels when you are finished for the day!

Thursday, January 8, 2015

Drywall is up! - Flat Ceilings

Tonight I helped my dad hang the rest of the drywall. He has done this kind of thing for so long and he knows exactly what he needs to do and how he needs to do it. I feel so slow! It takes me much longer to figure out how to measure, cut, and drill...and half the time I'm not even sure what I just did! All of his time estimations on the spreadsheet are off because I'm just a rookie and learning so much. He is mostly patient with me though. He didn't sit in the seat and watch at all today! He really couldn't. He needed to lift huge, heavy pieces of drywall up over his head and wait for me to get the 2x4's in place so he could begin drilling in the screws.

He only drilled in enough screws for the ceiling to stay up and it is now my job to finish putting many more screws in place to make sure that the ceiling is totally secure.

He showed me how to cut out the holes for the recessed lights - I don't even know what the tool is but it is pretty awesome!

Susan joined us for the last hour and a half of work. My dad had her building extra beams to nail onto the existing beams. Spots where we needed a little more space to drill in drywall screws. Last August, Susan bought me a purple tool bag with purple tools inside of it. Neither of us imagined it would be covered in sawdust and drywall just five months later!

All of the drywall is up! Tomorrow we are leaving for Florida so the room will sit and wait until we get back next weekend. I hope my dad will find space on his calendar to help me finish...his next house will be ready to demo on Wednesday.

Running Electrical Wire

My dad went shopping with me yesterday and we bought all of our supplies at The Home Depot. Electrical wire, cans, lights, drywall, drywall screws, speaker wire (we are adding ceiling mounted speakers to the room), sandpaper, etc... I am so glad he took me shopping because even though he gave me a list, I would have walked into the store and not come out for several hours. We were only in there for 30 minutes because he knew where everything was located (I learned a lot).

Yesterday we ran all of the electrical wire for the recessed lighting in the living room. We were on the fence - 4, 6, or 8 cans? Ultimately we decided to do 6 cans since the room is about 230 square feet.

Before this renovation I had a room that was so poorly lit - I'd flip on the fan light and the room didn't look any brighter at all...not even a little brighter. Tonight when we plugged all 6 can lights in, the room lit up! It looks amazing! I can even imagine how beautiful it will look with the walls, ceiling, and trim freshly painted. Oh, and the wood floors. I have to put in wood floors now!

I learned how to strip the wire and how to connect all the cans. My dad did all of the work at the electrical box and we had a quick inspection to be sure all was well. He and Chris took out the old two gang box and put in an 'old work' three gang box. I learned the difference between 'new work' and 'old work' - important to know when buying supplies. My dad connected all the wires and the lights came on! The recessed lights are on a dimmer, the fan light has its own switch, and so does the fan.

We hung one piece of drywall last night and then decided to call it a day. I had no idea how the drywall would get hung onto the ceiling....2x4's to prop it up until there are enough screws in place - brilliant!

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Living Room Demolition - Jen

Today I may or may not have rushed my kids to eat breakfast, get dressed, and run out the door in order to get the toddler to preschool in time, only to discover upon arrival that no one was there. A friend may or may not have told me at that point when I may have texted her with my confusion that preschool actually starts again tomorrow. I may or may not have gone coat shopping after the preschool fail, only to discover at the cash register that I had not brought any money.

....but, I DID completely demolish a living room using a sledge hammer, an axe, a crowbar, and brute force. Today has been one of my most interesting days ever. I started taping up the living room and vents around 1:30 and threw in the towel for the day at 10:30 pm. Yes, much longer than the 4 hour premise. Since I'm leaving town for a week on Friday I am working hard to get as much of this project done as possible.

My dad showed up at 3:40 with a checklist in hand of how much time each part of this project will take, along with an estimated budget (he also showed me how much money I am saving by doing this work instead of hiring it out). He helped me assemble the tools I would need and then he broke the ceiling open. He mostly held true to his word and sat in the chair and watched me work. He definitely did a great deal of work, but he let me and Susan do most of it.

How many times did I go up and down the ladder today? My quads got a great workout! Crossfit? How about Demofit? It was fun swinging crazy heavy, dangerous tools above my head, getting drywall stuck in my eyeballs (didn't start out with proper eye gear but Erich brought home some great safety goggles upon my request), picking up and carrying huge sheets of broken disgusting drywall to the truck, prying reluctant crown molding off the perimeter of the walls, and pulling nails out of the ceiling beams. At one point a nasty old cigarette (probably from 1985 when the house was built) fell out of the ceiling.

I am so relieved that we didn't find any problems underneath the ceiling. My dad had prepared me that you never know what you will find and sometimes you find things you need to fix. The only thing we found is one spot we will spray with bleach and a wire that needs to be secured with 'u-nails.'

Susan was a huge help. She was here, helping to pull down ceilings, pulling nails from the beams, and she did all of the vacuuming afterwards. We looked at each other in wonderment and laughed about what we were doing. We never imagined we would tear a room apart! She and I loaded up the truck and Erich took it all to the dumpster tonight for us so we wouldn't have to do that tomorrow. He also provided dinner for us and put the toddler to bed.

I am so grateful for my dad's direction on this and for everything I learned this evening. Tomorrow we will be doing the electrical work. We are putting in 8 cans of recessed lighting and we will run speaker wire so that we can add speakers to the room. We will change the light switch from two to three switches so we will have separate switches for the fan light, fan, and the recessed lights will be on a dimmer.

One of the very best things about today was that my kids - all three of them - really got into this and had so much fun! The two older ones insisted upon helping pry the nails out of the beams, so they were up on ladders using crowbars and hammers, having so much fun! It makes me so happy that they can share in the delight of a major DIY project like this...and that this knowledge will pass on to the next generation of my family.

Here are some pictures from today...

I am SO happy to not look at this nasty stain on that nasty ceiling for one more minute....well, except in pictures.