Finishing the Drywall

With a lot of progress made last weekend, my Dad got the itch and headed out from Michigan again to finish up the drywalling process and hopefully to begin putting mud on the walls. Somehow, he not only convinced my Uncle to come again but also my aunt. Turns out she's never flown before and never been to NYC as well, but she's braving it out to help my get this apartment done.

I grabbed the ZipCar Friday night and headed out to Caldwell County Airport (in NJ). I've got the pickup down to a science in a one hour time frame. We dug into the drywall Friday night and put up a fair amount that was remaining in the bedroom.

Saturday morning was more of the same, but I had to zip off to Brooklyn for a softball game, which I felt fairly guilty about. In the meantime, the rest of the gang made a trip to Home Depot on 23rd St. I can only imagine the look on my Uncle's and Aunt's face when they were walking into a Home Depot in the middle of NYC. After my 5 hours of absence, I returned to find most of the drywalling done and a fairly tired crew. I re-energized spirits a bit and then we went to grab dinner.

Sunday morning we focused on finishing the foyer ceiling which was more difficult then we all expected, but furring strips came to the rescue. I got a quick mudding and taping lesson from Uncle Steve and Aunt Sandy and will be doing the rest on my own (yikes!).

After dropping them back at the airport, I finished up drywalling the front closet.

So, a fairly productive weekend and a room and closets with walls again. Yeah!

ZipCar to the Rescue!

Last night I realized, yet again, that I wasn't going to have enough supplies and that I'm not ready for my Dad's arrival tomorrow evening. I ran out of furring strips the night before and not all of the insulation is in the walls.

ZipCar to the rescue! I hopped into a Tacoma pickup truck and made my way to Yonkers. After buying 4 bundles of furring strips, a bag of durabond, 5 boxes of 32 gallon contractor bags (you have no idea how hard these are to find) and one 12 pack of Coke (yeah, fuel for the weekend) I made my way back to Manhattan.

By 10 PM I was unloaded and had brought everything up to the apartment. I started into putting the furring strips up by 10:30 PM and had to saw a bit. Given the crap I've gone through with the co-op and the storage installation lately, a bit of noise at this hour should be tolerated by my neighbors.

By 1 AM, I was done. All the insulation is out of the bags and I have room to work again. Yeah!

Softball or Drywall? Pick your evil

With the cancellation of Saturday's softball game, I took advantage of getting a few friends together to start drywalling the bedroom. With the sheets hauled up and the insulation in most of the walls, we started in.

Of the four of us, only 2 had real construction experience, but helpful hands are always willing to learn.After a delayed start we tackled those evil 24 sheets that made us sweat. Since our experience was different, it took some time for everyone to figure out who has what skills, we got things underway.

As well, I didn't have all the furring strips put on the studs which slowed things down a bit. We soon got in to the groove and Anu and I formed team A while Jen and Brian formed team B. Here's team A hard at work.

After about 5 hours of hard work, we called it a day and had a few beers. Anu is now a drywall measuring/cutting expert, Jen can handle a screw gun without breaking a nail, Brian likes drywall glue and I have a bedroom with walls...well, 2-2/3 out of 4 at least.

Up the stairs....

I'm not sure what happened when I moved to New York City, but somehow I've found an amazing and crazy group of friends who have agreed to help me in just about any situation.

Tonight I was able to band together 7 able volunteers to help me haul up 24 sheets of 1/2" drywall 5 flights of stairs to my apartment. Can you believe it?! All I had to get them was beer and pizza. Wow!

There's not much else to say except thanks for sacrificing a good chunk of your night and sweating your butts off in the humid summer heat. Roy, Maite, Rachel, Rich, Dave, Anu, Brian and the trusty driver Jim are great.