Monday, my parents and I were able to complete the rest of the attic insulation in the morning. The afternoon was spent removing cabinets in the kitchen, removing some of the junk in the yard, and insulating the plumbing in the attic. Also that day the plumber came to fix a lot of the leaks in the system.
Tuesday, we removed the bulkheads in the kitchen, the storm doors and French doors. When removing the French doors we were amazed to find out how they installed them. The original door opening was too wide so they added three boards (2 x 2) and 4 layers of drywall. It is the things like this that make us happy we’re removing all the “new” parts of the house. See the picture below.
Wednesday we installed the drywall where we had just removed the bulkheads in the kitchen. It was rather challenging because not all of the studs or rafters were square or straight.
Thursday through Saturday, we had Uncle Bob to help out, too. We tackled the big project of removing, insulating, and replacing the upstairs ceiling. Thursday, we were able to remove the old ceiling and insulate. While we were removing the ceiling, we found a lot of interesting items. There was a huge wasp’s nest and a light fixture with a ton of stink bug eggs. The first home inspector noticed the wasps in September, but we could not access the nest until the ceiling was removed. We also found what looks like the first ever power strip. Pictures are below.
On Friday and Saturday Chris was able to help out and we were able to install all the drywall, put on the first two coats of drywall compound, and install new light fixtures. We also removed all the old kitchen items that were upstairs – it made it much easier to work!
One challenging part of the work was getting the large sheets of drywall upstairs – we had to do the “Drywall Two Step.” The “Drywall Two Step” involves going into the front door, swinging the drywall to the wall to go in the hallway towards the kitchen, backtracking into the living room while swinging the drywall to go down the hallway and into the walk-in closet, backtracking into the small bedroom, swinging over to the other wall, angling the drywall to go up the stairs and holding it almost vertical to go around the corner of the stairs. Below are some pictures of the work.
Sunday, it was just me and Chris. We were able to add new insulation to the walls of the upstairs – the insulation they had there and above the ceiling was about 1 inch thick. Hopefully adding all this insulation will help us with our heating bills down the road.
Wow, I don't envy your dry wall joint compounding! I hated that part when we redid the kitchen in Atlanta. I'm definitely willing to pay someone to do that next time if need be! :) You guys are making awesome progress! Good luck!
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