marching on

Well, hello, March. Where did you come from?

I can't say that a ton has changed at Hobbs since the last post, although life has been full. Micah babe and I went to Orlando, I had a painful ruptured cyst (all resolved), and we celebrated Micah's first birthday/our survival of the first year of parenthood.

The most noticeable change this month has been getting the sheetrock on the walls. It was quite the process! Thomas spent several weekends and nights after work measuring, cutting, and hanging pieces.

We had to cut a walkway through the front sunroom just to get the sheetrock pieces into the house.

Thomas recruited help from several people he works with.

Since all of the ceilings sag in the middle and none of the walls are square, cutting in the sheetrock was very complicated. Every piece had to be specifically measured and cut. Hanging the ceiling pieces was especially difficult because the old ceiling was hiding the joists, and the joists are unevenly spaced. Once all of the sheetrock was hung, Thomas had to go back and add more screws from the attic to secure it. In a newly constructed home, all of this would have been straightforward. It's hard to get in a groove working because each area has its own issues.

Here you can see the gaps in the corners between the ceilings and the walls. We are hoping a lot of foam, tape and mud cover up the holes. The age of the house seriously shows!

Cutting in each outlet, light fixture, and window is also time consuming.

From full sheets to scraps.

Now a professional is doing all of the finishing work and Thomas is trying to finish up random tasks to keep marching along. It's amazing how long each of these small projects takes!

We tore off the back metal awning that covered the door into the kitchen. Thomas sealed it with Tyvek to protect from moisture.

One whole Saturday was devoted to patching holes in the floor. The hallway floor that was open for the old HVAC unit could finally be sealed up. Thomas had to reinforce the beams underneath. He then patched lots of other holes from the fireplace and old vents. We will carpet the hallway and back bedrooms, so the patches don't matter. But we are going to try to refinish the main rooms, so he has to find some matching wood slats to finish them.

This is the side wall in the kitchen that used to be a door. We had to special order a window to fit and match in style. It's amazing how expensive this little window was! But we had to get the mullions to look congruent with the rest of the house according to the historical standards.

Another small project was hanging the attic stairs. Thomas is very eager to get the whole house sealed up since the sheetrock is hung. Any moisture could start to cause problems now. We also had the insulation company come back out to spray insulation in the floor and attic.

Most recently we installed the front picture window and the front door in preparation for tearing off the old sunroom. Thomas has almost finished drawing the kitchen cabinets so will begin building them soon. I am glad to finally have a little place to help in the kitchen design.

We are getting a little tired of so much thought and effort being consumed by the house. It's not very exciting to look out the window and see the old crummy thing still standing there looking not very different. All of our neighbors keep asking us about it, and we have to tell them, we're getting there, we promise! At least when the sheetrock is done we can paint the walls and it will actually look somewhat inhabitable. By someone. Someday...