Finally starting an addition on our shed

EddieWalker · Oct 7, 2018

Thanks for the update. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished pictures!!!

STx · Oct 7, 2018

I'm looking forward to seeing the finished pictures as well...lol.

I'm really, really happy with how the drywall finish ended up. We were pretty worried about the job the first guy was doing but, he was a friend's dad and we were trying to give him some time to fix stuff. Some of his float looked great and we felt like maybe it would be OK but, there was a lot that didn't get done right and I'm worried we're going to see some cracking in the future. Stuff like not fully filling the gaps in corners and joints before taping them, putting the tape on some joints with the crease facing out and using paper tape on butt joints instead of fiberglass, both of which created big humps that took a lot of float to hide. He also did a horrible job with the corner beads, we pulled them all off and redid them the night after he put them on, staying up until 2:00 AM and then getting up at 6 that morning. A lot of the worst of it is in the closet or at the ceiling joints so it either won't really be seen or we can hide it with crown. After we saw what was going on, we had a talk with him and his work improved some but, we still went ahead and mixed some 45 minute mud and filled all the rest of the gaps and covered the screws. Our work wasn't nearly as good as the professionals we ultimately brought in but, it was better than what he was doing. Given enough time and not having injuries, I think we could have probably finished the drywall ourselves. It would have been a learning experience with the float and skim but, I'm pretty confident it would have looked good at the end. The thing is though, that bad drywall can make a well built house look cheap and good drywall can make a badly built house look like quality. Now that we've found a good crew, we're going to use them for the rest of our drywall, especially with the hard deadline on getting things ready for Savannah's arrival. I can't do work nearly as good as them and certainly not as fast, they guy has 19 years of experience though so he should be better than me. Even with all that experience, this job was the first time he'd ever done a Brocade texture (what's on the ceiling). I had to pull up a couple of YouTube videos to show him the technique and he nailed it. It's kind of cool to be at this stage in something that we've done everything in except for the HVAC and the drywall finish, it's now starting to look like a real house inside. The coolest thing is that other than the HVAC and drywall finish, there have never been more than 3 people on the job site and a lot of it I've done alone. I feel like I've really accomplished something.

Other than the finish electrical and plumbing, building the bathroom cabinets and helping my wife with the floors, I'm pretty much done with my part now. It should speed up a lot since she doesn't really need my help to finish.

Sorry if I've repeated myself, I can't always remember what I've said since the accident, it's given me some memory and speech issues. I could re-read my post to make sure I'm not but, I'm too lazy to do that so I'll just conditionally apologize instead.

Eddie - I'm very glad to hear that your wife has beat her illness. We've lost close friends and family members to cancer, I HATE it. I pray (sincerely) that her recovery is complete and permanent.

EddieWalker · Oct 8, 2018

Thank you. She goes in again on Friday for her 3 month check up. She is nervous that they will find something. She was cancer free three months ago, but there is always the chance that it will come back, and that will never go away.

Sorry to hear that you are still feeling the affects of your injury. Hopefully it gets better soon. Have you been able to keep up with building your hog traps?

STx · Oct 18, 2018

Eddie, how did the checkup go? 3 months is a big one as far as seeing that it's all gone, I hope the news was good.

We've moved into the closet and shifted gears to remodel the bedroom and bathroom in the shed and get them ready for Savannah's arrival in early December. In the bedroom, that's moving some electrical, redoing the drywall and getting a ceiling in, I finally finished that all up yesterday. It took quite a bit longer than it should have for such a small room (7x10) but, I'm working through pain so it is what it is. I did a tongue and groove bead board on the ceiling, that I think turned out really well. I also finally got around to running the heavier wire into the breaker box for the 200A service since we're closing this wall up for good now, that was a real PITA.

Starting on the bathroom now, I've got to reroute the hot and cold water supply lines for the new water heater location, move some electrical, redo the drywall and build a custom vanity cabinet since it's an odd sized space and we can't find anything pre-built that fits. Hopefully, this only takes few days but, it'll probably take more than it should like everything else does now.

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EddieWalker · Oct 18, 2018

They did a CAT Scan to see if there was any sign of cancer coming back. First, she had to drink something horrible very slowly over an hour before the scan. Then after the first scan, they injected her with some stuff that will show up on the second scan that they can compare each scan to. The stuff they injected into her made her super sick. That lasted four days. Non stop diarrhea and overall just feeling horrible. Then yesterday, she started to feel better and was able to go back to work. Today she feels great again. She meets with her cancer doctor on Friday to go over the results. Since they haven't called her in early, we're hopeful that the results are good.

Hope you didn't get flooded out. We got 7 1/2 inches at our place since Saturday, but saw that some areas south of us where over 9 with the highest being over 11 inches.

I like the ceiling. That's what I'm going to do with my porch. It's a great look!!!

STx · Oct 18, 2018

We're at 6.7" so far (5" of it Monday) and it's raining again today. We've had about 24" since the beginning of September. It's very soggy outside, our wet weather creek is running but, we're at the top of a hill and our soil drains well so we don't flood.

Thanks on the ceiling, it was a lot more work than I expected but, the results were worth it. That part alone took me a couple of days. We're going to do the same thing in the living room, when we finally get to that part.

EddieWalker · Oct 18, 2018

Are you going to stain or seal the ceiling? I've found that it's a lot easier to do that before installing it. The biggest advantage is that the stain doesn't drip on you while applying it when it's on the saw horses.

STx · Oct 18, 2018

We're going to paint it. The floors in this room right now are trash, we're leaving them down to act as a drop cloth for drywall mud, paint, etc.

STx · Mar 31, 2019

First room is finally complete, it's not in the addition though. It's a 10x7 room, which makes it tough to get good pictures.

This is our daughter's room, she's currently upstairs in our room and we're sleeping in the downstairs closet. With her room done, we can move her into it so that our room can be completed and we can move out of the closet. We have to finish the downstairs bathroom where we moved the wall out about a foot first though. It's not a whole lot do, hopefully it won't take long.

I made the rosette blocks in the door trim and the cove on the ceiling and in the inset because we couldn't find exactly what we wanted at the stores. I'm really happy with how this room turned out, my wife did a fantastic job, she does all the finish carpentry and painting. It's nice to have a complete room to give us a window into how this will all look, eventually.