I cannot even begin to describe the excitement I’m feeling right now. It has been years, literally years, since we’ve been waiting to put the walls up downstairs. Finally, the long awaited time has come for us to put up the remaining drywall in our home. You know, that gigantic ton of sheets that has been sitting here for over 2 years. Yeah, that pile.
It’s been a long journey.
If you have been following our home renovation journey from the beginning, then you know it’s been a long time coming. There were many setbacks along the way. (The floor joists, the fireplace wall, the windows and brick, the porch, etc.) The number of thankless tasks that have gotten us here was grossly underestimated. At one point in October, I asked Brandon to make a list of everything we needed to get done before we could put up the walls. This way, we could measure our progress. Slowly but surely, we crossed off each item one by one til we were ready.
Insulation.
The last major item before the drywall was insulating the front porch and fireplace wall. We had the guys from Placid Foam come back and do the final coats. I highly recommend Placid Foam if you decide to do spray foam insulation. We also had to add insulation to the floor joists above to insulate the radiant floor heating. Here’s a look at what the downstairs looked like before the final coat of spray foam:
Once the insulation was done, we got right to work hanging the walls. Our good friend Joshua helped us two years ago with doing the walls upstairs. He did such a great job that we invited him back again to help with downstairs. Thankfully he said yes! That week, between Joshua, my friend Elizabeth, Brandon’s best buddy Dan and my parents, we made great progress!
^ The first piece of drywall!
The following week I had an amazing opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I was invited to go to Haiti with my local Rotary International organization. While I was away, Brandon finished up the rest of the walls on his own. When he finished, we hired Jeff Austin of Ace Painting come and do the mudding and taping. Jeff does such a fantastic job, and there’s no way Brandon or I would have been able to do half as good a job as Jeff. He’s an artist! Jeff also primed and painted the ceilings. The transformation downstairs is absolutely incredible!!
Here is the last look of what is was before the drywall:
AFTER!
Gahhh! This makes me so excited and motivated to continue! More updates to come.
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