Saturday, September 08, 2007

This Olde House - Part 2

Another day of toil and strife. But it we reached all our goals and I'm extremely happy with the results. First up is the next view of the front door. Click to enlarge and you can see the new light switches Dad installed. Notice the lack of raging red wood panels. How about the missing wood trim? All new sheet rock in place and the first layer of mud is down.

Next up is a new view of the long wall stretching toward the kitchen. All new sheet rock. And click to enlarge to see the new outlets along the bottom. It'll look much better once the mud is finished and smoothed and we get to the painting. But even like it is now, we're happier than we were with the wood panel and the red paint job. Maybe it is a trick of the mind, but I think the acoustics have changed. And the lighting is greatly improved.

Remember the white wood paneling around the dining room window and the big thick trim? All better, now. New dry wall in place. A new outlet below it, which isn't visible because of the my camera angle. And some temporary contractor's blinds in place to keep out the voyeurs.

Barely visible at the bottom of the picture (click to enlarge) is the gap that will have to be filled with new cement. I hung the dry wall all the way up to the ceiling, so there's space where the floor needs to be raised. I'm still trying to find a contractor to do that. And I'm not at all happy with the quotes so far. We're talking about a 12' x 15' room here, but the first quote came in at $400 and the second for $550, just for the labor to finish the concrete. The materials alone will be $250!

Finally, a picture of the expanded wall between the dining room and living room. The gap used to be barely ten feet wide. Now is it ten feet. That's my surprised bride about to say something profane!

Still a lot of work to do. The mud has to be skimmed and sanded. We'll probably put up two coats of primer. At least one coat of flat paint. And then the floorboards and crown molding. Sometime thereafter, I'll replace all the ceiling fans.

And miles to go before I sleep.

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