Pushing forward

Despite the final run of big deadlines this week for Matt for the engineer he does work for, he managed to find a few partial days to keep moving on getting the sheet rock ready for mudding and taping. There's always a bit of waiting on these engineering projects as other people involved get their coordination sets ready, so Matt put that down time to good use, and after he finishes up a few loose ends on this last project, he's free to put nearly all of his time into the addition for a while again.

Here's a bit of what happened this week.

I vacuumed (can't you tell! Ha!) so Krassi could come out with us. As it was, little man was so dusty after a few hours that we brought him straight into the bathtub when we were done in the addition. Notice here that he's on a plywood subfloor - the upstairs level where Grandma's rooms will be. Do you like Leah's work shoes? :)

Because we were able to have the little ones out with us, I was able to put my lifting skills to work again. ;) (When you already have children you regularly have to lift despite being pregnant who are 36 pounds and 32 pounds, a little sheet rock is nothing!) This is the one large wall on the stairwell that didn't get done last Saturday.

Now you see Reuben's trusty hammer...

...and now you don't. Today was the day that the little plastic toy that he's been working with out here ("Bum, bum!") since he got it for his birthday finally bit the dust. Thankfully he got a passable substitute as a gift a few weeks ago, and the shop vac isn't too bad, either. And as the wood studs get covered up with sheet rock, Matt's a little less interested in having Reuben banging all over anyway. So perhaps its all for the best.

One last piece and the stairs are done.

This is the shelf in the stair wall above - Matt loves using the Roto-zip our friend Mike is letting us borrow - makes it super simple to put the rock up, and then just follow the edges of the studs to cut out around your openings. It saves a lot of time. And that's why the stair wall looks blank in the photo above!

Moving on to the next day, Leah once again shows off her natural talent for working with small children as she all on her own figured out a way to occupy them by finding bits of garbage for them to take to the box where we're collecting scrap to be tossed.

Rinnah is very pleased with her contribution to the work.

I, on the other hand, was not as much help on this day. Krassi (on the other side of me) was rather whimpery all day, and even being out in the addition didn't help, so I spent a fair amount of time sitting by him, and Reuben, too, as you can see, mostly just wanted to lay low. With me. So that's what we did until it was time to take Krassi in for another bath!

 But, despite no help from me, Matt was able to get the bathroom to this point by the end of the day: all rocked and ready for the next step!! (I helped lift the one piece of cement board that goes at the back of the tub. That's it.) (And for those of you who are enjoying our version of "Construction for Dummies, Lite" (as in, written by amateurs like me and not someone who really knows what they're doing...though Matt does usually proof for me), you can see here that the sheet rock in the bathroom is blue and not white - this is because it's moisture and mold resistant, and the stuff right behind the tub is waterproof cement board.) (Okay, Matt is proofing, and says the Durock is not waterPROOF, but can tolerate some moisture better than sheet rock.)

Toilet will go on the left, and sink on the right.

And we're finally caught up to today. Once again Matt spent the morning at the computer while Owen and Leah worked on their school work, until he was free to get back out again. Owen pushed through enough of his work that he was able to start with Dad even before lunch, and they got quite a bit done today, too.

This was another place where my assistance was needed. This is the west wall of the north side of the living room - the main part of the living room that will have the fire place on the north wall. The recess in the wall is a side effect of the double wall system that we have, and the way the structure for the flat roof above Matt's office worked out. We decided to build a bench along that wall and paint the recess a contrasting color instead of furring it out to be flush with the rest of the wall. The open space underneath will be a plexi-glass window underneath the built-in bench through which Matt, when seated at his desk in his office, can watch little feet running around, and from this side, small people can crawl over on their bellies and wave to Daddy. ;)

After Reuben got home from preschool and ate lunch, he was right out there with the other boys. He's pretty pleased with being up on the rolling platform with dad. Those of you who know him personally don't need me to tell you what he's saying, but for the rest of you, what you're getting here, though silently, is Reuben's signature, "WOWWWWW!!!"

Working here in the (teeny-tiny, but sufficient) laundry room, Owen is showing off how adept he is with a sheet rock screw gun. He is such a valuable asset to Matt. Many pieces are too big for Matt to get up by himself, but Owen's able to add enough boost that together they can lift them into place, and then Matt gets a few screws in to get the piece stable, and then leaves Owen to put in the rest of the screws while Matt measures and cuts the next piece. He's able to move a lot faster when he's got Owen out there than when he's by himself.

Although some of the screws are still a little bit out of Owen's reach, even with a stool!

And I finally got to see the Roto-zip in action, and so do you. ;) The bottom of this window has already been cut out, but now Matt is zipping around the upper half of it.

boosh out it comes! That's Matt using his head again. ;)

And now we have a window in the laundry room!

Matt's got all day tomorrow to work, and should finish the main level sheet rock without any issue. We'd talked about only pushing forward on Barb's spaces after last Saturday, but since Matt's heavily considering paying two of the guys who were here last Saturday to do the mudding and taping upstairs, he's also going to ask them what it would take to have them do the main level as well, figuring even if we don't plan to need to move in to this space right away, having the really dusty work of finishing sheet rock done before Barb moves in will be very nice for keeping both her spaces and the main house clean. We don't need her to have to track through a dust zone to get from where she is to where the rest of us are! So before tomorrow's over he'll have the whole upper and main levels ready for them to come do their work. As far as we know. ;)