The Bucket Brigade or A Window Of Opportunity

   Tuesday, Ron-The-Stair-Guy came out to take a look at what we'll need for the stairs. Ed will install them but we need parts, and I don't know enough about rails, stiles, and all that stuff to order them on-line. Because the building code dictates what goes where, Ed will need to modify the area where the stairs come down to the landing so that the handrail can come all the way down on one side.

   Wednesday was insulation day. Two guys from Gale Insulation showed up first thing in the morning and hit it hard.
   I know I'm repeating myself,  but the transformation is so startling, I can't help it. The first thing you notice is that the door opening and closing sounds different. The rooms don't sound like you're standing in a warehouse. Walking is muffled. And when I yell for Ed, he can't hear me....at least...that's what he said.

  Abby, the dog is increasingly deaf, and we found her wandering through the house, because she couldn't hear where we were. There are walls where before, there were just studs and miles of wire.
    We used to be able to see from the foyer area through the hall and craft room to the back door. Not any more. I am finally (finally!) able to get a true sense of the size of the rooms.
The insulation guys worked very late Thursday to finish the walls. Ceilings will be blown in after sheet rock is done.

  Ed is pretty happy to see the last of the framing and wiring. He's been working on a short list of last minute items. He finished the blocking for the shower arms, towel bars, and tp holders just before the insulation guys started.
   Of course, once the insulation was all done, he remembered One More Thing.  One wire for the alarm system had to be fished through the insulation from the basement up into the attic, but that was managed with a minimal amount of swearing.

   While the insulation guys were working, Ed started framing in the area for the stair rail. He decided to just make a display box, which is fine with me. If we had originally known we were going to have a display box there, it would have been nice to make it a light box, but the wiring is done now. There will be arts and crafts style stiles and a newel post at the bottom of the stairs.

  
   Ed also framed out the hearth steps for the two fireplaces. I'll tile these with slate later.
    Meanwhile, I went to town to get paint and more lumber. The truck was in the shop, so whatever I got had to fit in the Jeep. I stopped at Home Depot and picked up 10 2x4x8 and went for paint. Sherwin Williams was having a 30% off sale. When you're buying as much paint as we will need, that adds up! I came home with 30 gallons of paint, with a promise to come back for the rest when I had room in my car.
Sunday I went back for 32 more gallons. I think I saved over $800.00 by buying it on sale. I still have 7 gallons to go. Raw sheet rock really sucks up the paint.

    Friday the sheet rock was delivered. It was two trucks full. Some could go straight through the front door for the first floor, but the second floor sheet rock had to be carried up the stairs.
   One of the guys looked around and said to Ed, "Can we take out that window and load it through the window?" He pointed to the second story arched window, masterfully trimmed and painted.
   "No.", Ed says, "As a matter of fact,I called last September to see if they wanted to load sheet rock early before the window was installed, they said you would just carry it upstairs."
  Easy for them to say. Those guys hoofed all that sheet rock up the stairs piece by piece. Some of it was 12 feet long.
  The road up to the roll up basement door is a muddy quagmire, so Ed lent them some plywood to make a platform for their dolly. They still had to use the bucket brigade method to unload it from the lift onto their dolly.
   Ed and I spent Sunday afternoon cleaning up the inside of the house. We put tools away, swept the debris, filled garbage bags, took stuff down to the barn. Finally we were satisfied that the remaining items wouldn't hinder the guys coming Monday to hang the rock.