Holy Cow!!!

Today is August 7th, 2008 and the last week is a blur. It seems like we closed on the house a few hours ago, but it has already been an entire week since that day. I have never had time go by so quick in my life, but I have the battle wounds to prove we all had a very busy week. This blog entry will probably be long, since I will summarize everything we have done, and try not to forget too much.

As expected, we did in fact close on our home last Thursday at 2:00 PM, right on time. It took about an hour and a half, and other than a very minor typo on one of the many forms we had to sign, everything went very smooth (the typo was corrected within a few minutes). Once we were done with the closing, we headed back to the old duplex and started moving things we would need right away to the house, like tools, etc. My dad made it into town about 5:30 or so and we all went to Shelton's for dinner. The calm before the storm :)

We went to bed pretty early Thursday night, and I awoke first just after 6AM and got my truck loaded with more tools. We headed over to the house around 8AM to start our work. The girls started by painting in the bedrooms.







The hard work was starting downstairs :) My dad and I started with the wiring. We had to pull several new runs of coax and ethernet cable, as well as the high voltage 12 gauge wire for the new office and computer closet (aka the brain center).









Not too long after this, Uncle Pat (the electrician) came over to lend a hand as well. I thought we would be done with the framing and rough electrical at this point, but reality was we had barely just begun. He did move a poorly located air conditioning switch and doorbell wire for us, as well as prepped the overhead light for what will become a ceiling fan.





Missy's brother Josh also came over, delivered to us by his sister Kris, who also lent a helping hand. Josh had planned to stay one night, but we needed him and he stayed until Wednesday. Thanks Josh!! We would never have gotten as far as we did without him, and it was a lot of fun having him around as well. We started the framing.







And around 2 or 3 AM, day one came to a close. Saturday started for us about 9AM, and we kept on framing.





It doesn't seem like it should take as long as it should, but because of tons of tiny little problems, they add up to kill a lot of time. Smoke breaks also cut into your time :) At some point, Saturday ended and Sunday began, but I don't remember exactly when. So these pictures were taken at some point on Sunday, probably in the middle of the night. The framing was completed and we started hanging the ceiling drywall.













We didn't think Sunday would ever end. Dad had to get to bed around midnight, Josh and I stayed up until about 3:30 AM completing the framing of the hall. There was not supposed to be a hall, it was originally planned to be a foyer. But there were just too many pipes, vents, wires, and other stuff hanging around in our way to make this practical. We decided to build a hall instead, and the existing "stuff" was positioned just right to allow this to happen.

Monday began about 4 hours after Sunday ended, and we started the bulk of the drywall hanging work. We tried to each do our own thing, Josh and I would cut and hang the drywall and my dad would tape and mud it. Sometimes this worked out well, but the office is small and we were often in each others way. But we managed to make good progress.







Monday ended very late too, and Tuesday was my last day off work. It was obvious to me at this point that my previous schedule was just a dream. This was not a surprise to me, I knew my self-imposed schedule was very optimistic to the point of being humorous, but a boy can dream, right? So Tuesday was all about drywall and mud, and hanging the final door.





Even pushing 40, you can still learn a lot from your dad.





Papaw teaching Halle too about the finer points of drywall mudding.





So there it is, the last week in a nutshell. I also wired my server closet yesterday and managed to get everything back online in pretty short order, no thanks to Charter, they sent me a bad cable modem and I had to drive to the other side of town to get a new one. Murphy's law was always present on this project with gas lines and other plumbing being in the way, outlets that refused to sit flush against the drywall no matter how many times we moved them, a nail gun that tried to kill us, "standard" door knobs that don't fit our "standard" doors, electrical wire that arrived as underground wire which is a total PITA to work with, cuts and stab wounds, and a bunch of other stuff I am trying to forget.

Lack of sleep and the feeling of being beat up constantly took its toll on us, but we still had a lot of fun doing this. As rough as it was, this is what good family memories are made of. I cannot express how thankful we are to my dad and Josh. You guys were real troopers and we very much appreciate all the time and effort you put into this project. THANK YOU!!!

And our friend June too, don't think I am going to forget about her! She helped Missy out a ton with the upstairs painting and wallpaper removal, and I am sure a bunch more stuff. She was around as much as she could be and her hard work is also appreciated!

A special shout-out too to Uncle Pat for stopping by to check my electrical work and get everything properly hooked up. I did not get shocked even once this week, even though I did manage to grab a hot wire.

On Monday, Two Men and a Truck also moved a majority of the household goods. They should be sued for false advertising, they actually sent 3 men :) Seriously though, they did a fantastic job and all of the guys were terrific.

So that's it, back to work now... I am actually working now in the unfinished part of the basement next to my office. Once it is complete, in a month or so, I will move in there. Even this is far better than the duplex!