Monday & Tuesday ceiling and priming

Jessica was retiring for the night -- somewhat. Behind her is another section primed this afternoon. Jessica volunteered to help and wanted the "largest section". She did the "blue room". Lilly is always a "big" help. She bears a white line on her side.
Jessica was a help today, so thank you Jessica!
She also got a section near the steps that I had missed entirely.
These are very thin slats (lattice) that will hide seams in the office.
This is part of the office. The ceiling tiles were quite heavy to support single-handed. Diane held it and I fought with the screws to get it into place. Yeah! I cursed the times the screws fought me and won.
We left the one tile drooping. There is a problem that jim will resolve. We don't want to put a screw in the water line, so Jim can find it.
There is another section, which requires the removal of the light in order to install the ceiling. We didn't take the time to do this tonight.
When cutting the tiles at night last night, I accidentally sliced through the table. Thankfully it can be helped and fixed, albeit with an ugly hint, wood glue.
These are ceiling tiles that are roughly dense cardboard like the old clipboards. They are not too heavy, until you have to support them over your head.

Monday's work story will be continued later

due to my being called to help Diane today.

Monday, June 30th, 2008

Well, I was going to meet a friend on Monday morning, but that didn't work out because of unforeseen circumstances. It wound up being better for her family, as they wanted to go shopping at the mall. They had to make a trek for they live in Warsaw and came to Fort Wayne to shop. Oh well, ce' la vie! Better luck next time.

Diane called me for help. First, her car had the "check engine light" on and Diane was naturally concerned that it would spell the end to her car. She bought this car from Enterprise Rental and it seemed to do fairly well. I will assume that, for I know that she puts miles on her car like a truck on a rig.

A strange thing happened ... Hell froze over, the wind tussling her hair in the way slacked and the background ambient noise hushed to a whisper. OK, that didn't happen, but her luck, for once, wasn't bad. The mechanic suggested that the air in-take was leaking from a gasket. The situation is very common on the Ford Taurus cars of that age. It would take $250 to fix, but ... it wasn't a danger to the engine. It was to correct emissions. The side effect to the leakage is that she would get better gas mileage. Yeah, she's hard pressed to get that fixed.

The rest of the day was minor work with mostly planning.

Mike, who did the drywalling with neighbor Dusty, not Dustin as listed in the posts below, came over and did lots of work. Diane wanted to fix the spotty areas of the popcorn ceiling. Mike shrouded the rooms in plastic and began.

If you don't have the supplies needed, don't bother trying to do it yourself. It is work! Mike returned to his work union and is working on a gig for the local school system. He is unsure how long that will last, so is happy to work side jobs. He brought in his air compressor, funnel and gun (commercial items), high torque drill (commercial item), and 36" drill bit for stirring. Only with experience could anyone know the ratio of sheet rock (dense material) to water for it to work. He put the sheet rock in water, stirred the mess with the drill until the right consistency. Then pouring the soup into the reservoir funnel, you spray up in even coats, powered with the air compressor.

At this, I saw -- nope, I could not duplicate that. If you have ever tried to paint "popcorn" ceiling with a paint roller, you know that it works as a fairly effect ceiling ripper-stripper. After Mike's success on this, he sanded down the drywall mudding that he did before.

He did a great job, nice man deserves some recognition. Thanks Mike for your hard work and expertise!

Diane's drywall

Diane tried to clear off the drywall dust from her clothes before we took off for anther run to Menard's.

I reminded her about painting base lines.

I was painted

Yeah! paint up the nose

Lilly

The bone is actually red with drywall dust making it look pinkish.
If you will look, she has ball in her mouth at the same time.

She doesn't like it when I kiss her nose (muzzle) during play. Here she is nearly lulled to sleep with me rubbing her with my foot.

Here she is wild ... her norm.

more work, different day

This is a scene of "I give up", for I did, then Diane did. We quit working on the tiles for it would only end it us slamming the pieces on the ground in bitter anger.

Thank you again Jeff for helping when we needed it. Jeff delivered the drywall to us in our late hour.
He later told us that he had to load the five sheets himself for the dummies at Menards didn't even process that they might be a bit awkward for just one person to load.

Here, Jeff talks to Jenny across the open space between the kitchen and the living room, aka the blue room.
Still in this post, you can see the open space removed.

Again, looking at the downstairs you see the new insulation. The brown sections are the new insulation put where the insulation was missing.

As noted on a previous post, the studs were not 24" on center in the basement nor in the kitchen/blue room. Each drywall piece had to be cut custom. What a joy.Note the larger sections needed on the (North) East wall?

This is the finalized wall complete fairly quickly by Mike Fey and Dustin.

Mike Fey and Dustin at work. They were more liberal with the mud use than were we. It likely made it more secure, since he found that the studs were not 24" on center, so this patch area has support in more locations that every 24".

There was a problem area by the front door, so Mike fixed this also.

This large of a section clearly demands a whole new repaint of the room. Diane has not yet decided on a color.

Diane is picking up the pieces of tape from taping the drywall before mudding. Lilly was a big help again by grabbing the loose paper and running around with it, chewing it, begging for more, regardless whether there was a lot on the ground. The dust on the ground later coated a few of her toys with white. Joy.
She is behaving a bit odd, and it is likely that she is starting to go into heat again. Now that is great timing, right?

I was out with a friends in morning and part of the afternoon, so Diane was left solo for a while working on the walls. Shamefully of me, I know. Under the cabinets the mud had to be thicker and there was less airflow, so it stayed wet longer.

This just adds to my "allure" with millions of ruddy freckles and now millions of blanco freckles.

The ceiling has a better shine and sheen now. It isn't perfect, but it is much better. It was unclear last night whether Diane planned to do another coat on the ceiling or not. This section was done entirely with the power painter.+

Although it looks patchy, the darker areas are the wetter areas. It won't be quite clear how we did until today with it being as dry as it is going to be.

+ This is the power painter.
If you ever choose a power painter I suggest these few ideas:
It requires experience to do a good job with it. It had burst/pulse settings as well as a flow regulator.
There is a specific ratio of water to paint (lowering viscosity); these ratios are not in print
Diagnostics on flow and suction difficulties are also not plain.
There are many small parts, so cleaning should be done where you don't lose any.
Cleaning take times, soaking, tools, cleaner

We were using the power painter to paint the ceiling. Rather than use the included paint can, we drew paint from a can of paint that was mixed with water. Again, getting the ratios was tough. The thinner, watery test spraying that we did coated the walls a bit, letting water run down over the drywall paint. Oh, fudge (or some other more applicable profane word)!
After some work, we got it working. It was a learning experience figuring the settings to get a mostly even flow and the speed at which to move up and down in lines keeping a mostly 90 degree 'stroke'. I needed the ladder, for my shortness, on the sections near the windows. The areas there were prone to mildew and weathering.
Diane was therefore tethered to me, like a person on oxygen, hoses ran from me to the paint can the Diane held. I wanted her to experience the "delight" of using the damned thing, so we switched. As it stands to reason with her crappy luck, that it started to sputter more with her using it.

It had stopped once. I had to pull the end attached to the hose (suction end lying in paint) and completely flush it with water. Thereafter it worked for a short while, but would cough and sputter. After some more attempts we stopped like the painter.

Diane got a call from Jessica. Zane, her boyfriend, acquired a puppy (shetland-spaniel mix) and took it to Pet(not-s0)Smart. The puppy got its shots at 2pm, but was having breathing trouble by 7pm. Diane called two vets and asked them, best guesses with what data she had. They predicted allergic reaction to the shots. Petsmart's vet isn't around at 7pm. Nope, that would be convenient. Whereas FW has a bit of a dumbskullary to it, there is but one 24-hour emergency clinic.

Diane suggested that they, Zane, Jessica, and puppy Lexie go there. It is NE whereas Diane is SW. Diane doubted that Zane had the $150 for the bill, as he is a teen. Fair enough. Diane asked if I wanted to go with them, I chose to stay and paint so that something was done.


I painted what I could, patching the popcorn ceiling with a bush. Rollers tend to pull away the ceiling. I cleaned out the roller that I used on the stairwell walls. There came the frustration. The first hose I chose (one leading to the garden), didn't have enough pressure to peeve an ant, let alone clean.

I grabbed the new hose, but it was missing the washer. I pulled the washer off the other hose. Then I noticed that each step I took, left a white shoe print on the deck. Wonderful! I started cleaning and it was just a watery stinking mess. I would have done better not wearing shoes. By the end of the night they were still swampy so I drove home barefoot. Lilly was outside, which she liked much for she was in too much. I called out to her when I couldn't see her. She has been known to chase after birds and cats. She also torments a dog with an electric fence collar. That's just plain unfair.

She came to me when I called, thankfully she was still in the yard.
--note: here I was a little miffed with Jenny, for I haven't seen her participate in the work at the house, so I thought helping with the dog would have been nice, but she didn't. This didn't improve my mood. --

The hoses were "fun" to clean and Lilly wanted to play with the water "fountain". I played a bit with her, though I really just wanted to clean and call it done. She was about as wet coming in as she might have been swimming. It took a while to dry off her thick fur.

I finished cleaning the small parts in the sink. Diane called and was on her way. She bought Taco Hades, which sadly wasn't on the way back. Damn my pickiness! I don't eat McDonald's and there isn't anything at Wendy's I eat, so I am a tough guy.

She got back and then needed two things from the over-packed garage attic. I found her the cage, thankfully and that was done. The carrying case was on the floor of the garage. The presented quite a puzzle to Lilly for it smelled much of her, her mom, airport and the like. She was disturbed by it, longing to smell it, get in it, yet was frightened. She was five times too large to fit.

Diane's engine light came on in her car. Since it was fixed recently, it is a wonder what the issue is now.

Diane also had other problems. She went to the bank to get tax records, but they gave her some runaround with "not on this computer". OK dummies, it isn't on the server? Bull***t! Idiots! Diane has to go get them tomorrow. Indiana government showed its best with the driver tester for Jessica. He signed the form in red ink -- not legally binding, then failed to communicate with the department about the situation. Jessica has to wait yet another day with red tape from red ink. Bloody wonderful, eh?

With the **it hitting the fan, Diane postponed the carpet installation, which makes the inspection later, which will likely make the closing and refinancing later. It was a middle finger flicking a series of dominoes.

Diane's luck

Well, putting up drywall should have been fast and simple. As it turns out, the studs in the basement (perhaps the whole house) are not 24 inches on center. Oh, no. That would be up to code and simple. So, we had to cut nearly every piece to match. The room was 13' x 24' with many outlets that had to be cut.

I was so hoping that I would have mudded the drywall today and that tomorrow I could have painted. I tried to put up some ceiling tiles, but they too proved too smart or tough for me. I nearly pulled a "hulk smash" in anger. The tiles were very tough to put in, especially the slide puzzle feature on the last row.

I was shocked twice due to poor grounding.

There were two guys who came to close off a wall connecting one room to the kitchen. They were fairly fast and did an OK job. The studs there were also wrong. Hmmm, methinks it was a drunk architect or crew.

I am tired, stiff, sore. We had to make a run to Menards for one last piece of drywall. They cut it for us. Bruce, the cutter, used a box knife that was falling apart. I thought I was the dangerous one! Some other fool there had six 12' drywall sections loaded on his pick up truck. They dangled out the end. On top of the pieces, they put a new door. I would expect "crash".

My sister has the worst luck!

Wisconsin Vacation

Lois and Thomas went on vacation with Beth and Tom to upper Wisconsin for a week in early June. Beth and Tom had a cabin on Delta Lake near Iron River. They brought their two dogs with them. Lois and Thomas stayed in a near by motel. It was a good opportunity to see the sights from Duluth Minnesota to Ashland Wisconsin. Delta Lake had kayak, canoes and row boats available. Beth and Tom used them several times. Beth had serious car problems and had to buy another car while we were there. Thomas being from a steel mill town found the port of Duluth, which ships iron ore, very interesting. We also took a boat trip to Madeline Island that is located on Lake Superior. On the way home we stopped in to see Tom’s parents that lived south of where we were staying. Wisconsin had serious flooding in the middle part of the state. This caused a major detour

Working with Diane

Well, we started to finish the ceiling in the office room, but halted. More special cutting, more negotiating and a late start. We got up the support beams, but not a bit of the ceiling itself.

Jessica painted primer on the new dry wall after she and Jennifer sanded it. Logan helped by taping off the molding before we painted. We moved most everything out of the room so that it could be painted, dried, painted and ready for the carpet installers.

That should have been the day.

Diane was worried about a section of the wood paneling along the back wall. It was intact, but was messy with mold. More panels suffered the same fate, all along the wall, mold. It was not on the East wall much, but the West wall had some. Diane called for the removal of the paneling. The drywall, most of which was moldy had to go. So it was a lot more work.

That means that we have to put up half wall in the entire basement rec room of drywall. We then have to paint that room, the stairwell down, all before the carpet installers on Wednesday. What a fun week, right?

Lily, the dog, was not especially helpful.

+ on a positively charged note, I found out what caused my mild conductivity with places; my cellphone and keys that I prefer to carry on me.

Actually, I put Jessica's name here.

Welcome to Diane's messy, unlucky life.