Merry Christmas

The holiday glitz and glam of twinkling lights and Christmas carols quickly left with my tree on Saturday morning and construction dirt and grime started back up again with my Dad and brother in town.

Saturday was a busy day. I orchestrated the team and put Travis to work in starting the process of demolishing the bathroom.


Dad tackled finishing up framing the kitchen wall, primarily so we could level it out and place in boards to eventually mount cabinets to.


While this was all happening, I worked on mudding until we were ready to drywall the kitchen wall. Once it was done, it looked great and I was happy to say good riddance to the wall that has slowed this whole process down for the past couple of weeks.


The bathroom was a bit of a disaster with all the trash and other items in the tub we we could mud the walls in the living room and kitchen.


After a long day of work, Travis and I went out with Jen to grab some bar food and drinks...and pomegranetes.

Sunday was spent mudding. Dad and I tackled what we could but still didn't finish it up.

Tomorrow I'm taking the day off of work to lay the wood floor in the kitchen. I don't expect it to take too long, but we'll see.

"Trucking" Ahead

I can't believe how fast the past few weeks have gone by. A lot of work has been done with help from many hands, and trucks. I've been in the local ZipCar Toyota Tacoma all too much in the past 4 weeks. I think that I may be the only person renting it as the mirrors and seat position always seem adjusted perfect for me.

Yet, while the price of gas has gone down the cost to rent the ZipCar hasn't, nor has drywall and other construction materials. Yet, just about everything I need to finish the major construction is in the apartment now.

The plumbing was even finished on the 16th. The sink was successfully moved over 2.5' I know, it was probably dumb for me to pay that much to move the sink over but I really feel it is going to make a world of difference.


Although the plumbing is in, my permits haven't cleared yet compliments of someone else in my building who has a violation for construction without a permit...grrrr.

The lesson of the week has been to relate the finishes to the placement of the infrastructure. In my hurry to get the electrical done on the last visit from the Michigan crew I forgot about the mounting height of the outlet boxes in relation to the picture frame molding. Long story short, I ended up moving every electrical box down a few inches...which proved to be difficult for some.

Despite my earlier lack of attention to detail, everything else has been moving forward. The last of the drywall was hauled up on Wednesday night last week and I began to hang it last weekend. More was tackled this weekend and I'm really happy with how the room has been shaping up. I spent a fair amount of time last week running all the power and light switches to the island position.

Today was a bit frustrating as I tackled re-doing the 2x4 framing for the kitchen wall. The pipe re-routing threw a bit of a kink into the original location for 2x4's, but I think I worked out a decent solution. My internal interior designer started thinking about whether or not to extend the wall to the door or stop it at the drain pipe. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to extend it to the door but I'll sleep on it tonight.

Finally, I wired up everything for the kitchen - 2 counter outlets, 1 dishwasher whip (loose wires), 1 stove outlet and one whip for a range hood.

All this took much more time then expected so my ambitions to finish the ceiling were kill joyed.

Yet, I have started a bit of mudding and plan to do more this week in preparation for Dad and Co. arrival on Friday. The ideal plan would be to have everything mudded before they get here so we can sand, prime, install wood floor and demo the bathroom walls/floor.

More to come this week.

Primed in 26 hours

It's been an extremely tough week at work. I've been getting home after 8 PM typically and jumped right into mudding so that all would be ready to go for the weekend.

Luckily Friday was a easy day. I woke early and rushed down to Sherwin Williams on 46th St to get supplies. Somehow I managed to connect with a friend who we hunt with to set me up with a contractor discount there although it still bit $79 out of my wallet!

Dad flew in early to tackle sanding when we could be legit about making noise. Unfortunately a dual failure of the alternators on the plane kept him in NJ much longer then expected so I started in without him around 5:15 PM.

After he arrived with Kathryn at 6 PM and I spent 35 minutes to find a parking spot we dove into the sanding. I set 10 PM as the cut off time for using power tools and shop vacs, completely ignoring co-op rules but with the knowledge from my neighbor Brian that it only sounded like I was vacuuming.

You may recall my description of mudding and how much "fun" it is. The fun of mud has now been surpassed by sanding seams. I literally thought I was on a TV set where it was warm but snowing. Our eyes burned multiple times from dust flying into them and choking/sneezing seemed like a normal epidemic. I thought about taking a picture of this, but feared I would damage the camera with all the dust.

By 11 PM, we had finished 90% of the bedroom and bedroom closet seams. Dad and Kathryn went to bed while I touched up some spots with mud and finished seams I hadn't gotten to in the closets til 1 AM.

Saturday morning's 8 AM trip to home depot sucked my wallet dry a bit more, but we also discovered Stew Leonards which was a grocery shopping experience similar to the Disney World ride It's A Small World.

With a ladder and food stuffed in the trunk we unloaded and finished up sanding by 1 PM. Jen joined us for some painting and by 3 PM the first coat of primer had been applied. With a quick hour topcoat time, another coat was applied within 40 minutes. This work goes real fast when you have 4 able hands to help.














Jen split at 5 and Dad started prepping dinner while Kathryn and I finished sanding the front closet, cleaning, etc.

By 8 PM, everything was done and we were all proud of what we had accomplished in just 26 hours and I went out to wash down the dust with a few beers.

It was nice to make progress again this weekend and its funny how paint on the walls makes all the difference, even if it is just primer.

I have to admit that I was getting discouraged this week, questioning why I was even doing this. I thought about the support from my close friends who have also spent many hours here with me as well as my crazy family who brings me tools and labor all the way from Michigan.

Maybe one of the best parts about the weekend was when David Cunningham stopped by. He's the architect who I paid to make my DOB drawings and stamp them. It was great how excited he was to see the progress and seemed happy at the attention I'm giving to the details such as the trim.

David also asked me if I had any regrets of doing it on my own. I paused for a second and then told him no. I've learned so much about construction as well as how much related services and materials cost. He made a good point saying that it makes you think a lot about when you design something and how sensitive a client may be to the cost associated with it.

But enough of the deep thoughts. It's been a few long and laborious weeks and weekends so I'm off to bed. Floor sanding takes place this week, but more on that later. Here's a parting shot of the near finished product.

Transporting Mud

Making the big push this week before this weekend's priming, I ran out of mud last night. Last time I carried it from Home Depot on 23rd street in plastic bags. Carrying a floppy 25 lbs bag of mud mix that far is never fun.

This time I was prepared and brought my hiking backpack to stick it all into. Although 50 lbs of mud on your back plus the pack weight isn't easy, it was certainly a lot better to transport this time.

I've got less then 24 hours so on with the work.

Mud mud mud mud mud....

Progress is slow and the mud keeps flowing. Yet, this week is the final push before the "big sand" on Friday and the "posh paint" on Saturday and Sunday.

That's right, Dad is coming into town again and he's bringing the drywall primer. Yet, I still have a bit of work to do. I made a good push this week and weekend again, getting mud on almost every last bit, minus a few closet corners. All the closet drywall is glued up, after a tight ride in the Honda Element from Home Depot to get some more drywall. The Peel Away was brought back from the dead to finish off the front closet door frame. Exciting!

Unfortunately, my absent mind won again and I forgot to buy more mud so now it will be a chore to carry it from Home Depot on 23rd St. which is never fun. Luckily, I'll only need to get 2 more bags to finish the job.

Look for a big progress post after next weekend...

Mudding Still....

It's been a while since I've posted a proper blog entry, but unfortunately there isn't too much to write about. I made a push a few weekends ago to get this mudding done and was quite successful at getting the two base coats on almost everything. Yet, summer has been calling still and my August and early September have been filled with long weekends away sailing, the New Jersey shore and Michigan. Top that off with a large explosion of business at the office and I've been screwed out of doing much work at home rolling in around 9 PM. Remember, each batch of this mud takes 1 hour or apply!

Yet, there have been many accomplishments. All the plaster is off of the brick around the door and has been scrubbed free of dusty plaster. The drywall in the foyer in the few spots it was missing is up. Lots of documentation, such as stud locations, has occured as well as a rigorous pricing exercise for the kitchen (still going though). Again, thanks to the friends who helped with these little tasks. You know who you are.

With that said, I made another small push again this weekend and will do so again in 2 weekends to finish up mudding. Switching over to the lightweight mud wich is meant for sanding, I had to slightly re-learn my technique. The goal with this coat is to feather out the edge so it appears smooth and there aren't any mud 'bumps' visible on the walls. I think I'm doing OK, but the true test will be when the paint goes on.

The adventure of the weekend was putting the drywall onto the plaster in the closets. Rather then chip all of this off the brick wall (adjoining with the hallway) or skim coat over it, the executive decision was made to mount the drywall on top of the plaster on brick. Although I lose 1/2" by doing this it will make the wall texture consistent...and it saves me the time of learning how to skim coat, etc. Using trusty PL200 construction glue and a makeshift mounting system the drywall went up and is staying in place and should be stuck there tomorrow.

Mudding

With all of the drywall up on the wooden framing and the ceiling in place, it's been a big focus on the little things and mudding.

Now I know what you're thinking, mud sounds like a lot of fun. Somewhat wet, somewhat dense, cold and mushy. It even is great for the skin (facials anyone?).

Unfortunately, drywall mud is just about the exact opposite. The good stuff, known as "hot mud", requires mixing instead of just scooping it out of a bucket and slapping it on the wall. In addition to that, it has a setting time which exponentially decreases with each degree of temperature increase. Last but not least, there's a technique to all of this (especially the corners) which I'm trying to learn fast. All in all, this part is a bit more difficult and much more time consuming then I thought originally. The mud sets quicker due to the summer heat, the corners are difficult (I don't want to even talk about the first one), each batch of mud takes me an hour to apply and it's really a one man job since I only have one set of tools and space to work, mixing mud, etc. is so time consuming.

But there is a point to the mud - it hides the screws and seams making a smooth surface. There's an art to it though as you need to build up the layers so that the eye is deceived when everything is painted.

So far, I've spent a lot of solo hours moving forward with the mud and assigning little tasks to people who want to help. Each seam requires 2 coats of a denser mud then 1 coat of a lightweight mud. When that's done, everything needs to be sanded and then primed with paint.

Although the progress pics aren't anything to write home about, here's one of the bedroom. Note, the floors are clean and clear...but that's just a temporary point of beauty so enjoy it.