Our Monona Mess

 This week Dave and I were both off work for the week before Christmas and we knocked off a couple of small projects around all the holiday and birthday fun. Dave continued to put trim in the bathrooms, the hallways, and kitchen.  Tyler and he bought walnut boards from ReStore and then planed them to get them ready to make into a mantel for the living room. They got a $3 floor board from the ReStore for the missing floor board in the kitchen and Dave finished it and put it in with trim.  You cannot even tell which board was missing now.  Then he closed the old baseboard cold air return in the living room that we are moving into the floor.  He makes the holes just disappear.  While he worked on the trim in the house, I put the backsplash in the beverage station.  On Christmas Eve, we hired someone to tile the kitchen, who has an opening on Monday...eek!  Dave quickly put the wood trim around the window and took down the hood vent to prep the room f...

  This week Dave finished painting all the doors and woodwork and then worked to put them back on.  As soon as he got the doors on, Dave sprayed the ceiling. While Dave worked on painting, I installed a new smart thermostat.  Then I got to work painting the walls and top of the fireplace. At times, it was difficult...around the fireplace I needed to use a tiny paintbrush to follow the outline. It took an entire day, but we cleaned up all the plastic, cardboard, dust and tools. .And now we have a living room!

  Last week was all about drywall finishing. Our drywall finisher came for 5 days straight and used as much mud as would normally be used for 40 sheets of drywall.  The old plaster walls and ceiling took so much work. They bubbled and oozed yellow. It really slowed the process.  In the end, it is smooth and it is textured in an off-white color to help hid the oozing yellow (years old tar and nicotine).  On Sunday, we took advantage of having the room all masked off and turned it into a paint booth.  We sanded the wood trim on the door and windows. Dave prepped all the doors, including the multi-window door to the breezeway.  Then we brought up the rest of the woodwork and laid it all out in the room for Dave to prime and paint with the airless paint sprayer.  Three nights of prep for 20 minutes of painting During this multi-day process, we had the door off between the screen porch and the living room with just 2 layers of  plastic to protect it an...

  The living room is really coming together. Dave worked hard on getting the walls and ceiling ready for drywall finishing.  He also needed to finish up some electric work before the drywall could be finished.  There were several cracks and poorly finished areas in the plaster walls.  One wall has water damage and nothing really sticks to the wall. Dave spent 2 days scraping off the mess.  Then the dropped ceiling to cover the water damage and mold also created problems.  Dave needed to scrape and sand around the top of the wall all the way around the room and get all the screw holes cleaned out and prefilled.  He also spent lots of time cleaning out the room and taping it off to protect the floors and the kitchen. Finally it was ready and our drywall finisher began filling all the holes. After 2 days, it is already looking better.  Last week, our plumber came to put in the gas line for the fireplace and Dave ran the electricity for it.  I al...