Though we didn’t get started on the house until around 1PM on Sunday, Liz and I had an incredibly productive afternoon. We’ve been putting in a lot of hours towards the house, but today was really something – as far as all the tasks we got completed.
Had brunch plans this morning at Dusek’s. Shortly before our departure, we realized that we’d be right along the Chicago Marathon route! We debated getting a ride versus driving, but ultimately opted to drive ourselves – for the adventure, if nothing else. Surprisingly, we encountered little traffic, and found a decently close place to park.
I had some errands to run during the day Saturday with Bob, but in the late evening… Liz and I resumed work in the basement. We got more pieces along the back basement wall put up.
These photos are from last night, when we kind of combined tasks. While I was out doing laundry, Liz was home prepping drywall. When I got back, I went down to the basement and pitched in – helping to install the pieces that Liz had measured and cut on her own.
Monday night house night! After work, Liz and I suited up to go work in the basement for a bit. Our goal was to get Visqueen up on a good many of the walls, focusing on the south side of the house – in the back and the front basement.
Last night, Bob came over to do the cement pour in our back basement. Our goal was to have a small housekeeping pad for the (future) washer/dryer. We wanted to get it done over the weekend, but time got away from us. Luckily for us, Bob was willing to tackle it on a school night.
We’ll be doing a small housekeeping pad, for the washer and dryer. And that means… more bags of cement! Seventeen bags, to be exact. The funny thing? When we figured out the final number of bags we’d need, my first thought was “Oh good, that’s not so bad.”
Liz, patching over screw holes, as Bob watches and advises.
We didn’t have any special tools to work with drywall, so we ended up mostly using the multitool. For some of the larger cuts, I used a circular saw (though that kicked up a crapton of debris).
The whole Visqueen process was way, way easier than I thought it would be. Though it took a while for us to get the plywood installed officially, the Visqueen part went by super quick.
I’m now much less daunted about applying Visqueen and dry wall across the entire basement. I think with a full day, Liz and I could likely power through the rest of the basement.
Today was our big move, getting lots of our boxed items transferred from our second floor over to a storage unit. Our goal is clear out our second floor as much as we possibly can, so that we can start to do more significant work on the floor and walls in the master bedroom, guest bedroom, and (eventually) our front office.
Tomorrow morning, we have a crew of movers coming over to relocate all our boxes into a storage unit.
It’s part of our larger plan for the second floor, to literally clear out as much as we can… so we can start to do some serious work up here: ripping out the old floor, putting down insulation and conduit, adding new plywood, and also getting some walls set up.
Today marks our eight year anniversary, and we spent a little time after work just hanging out on our front steps. We shared a little bit of wine to celebrate, and also shared some tissue so we could blow our noses together.
It’s not an estate sale (or flea market) until you find a VHS copy of Star Trek TNG!
While near their house in Valparaiso, we were going down a small road when Liz yelled “Look out for that animal!”
As we got a bit closer, she yelled out “It’s a chicken!”