Looking back over year 2

Yes, it’s already over. If you remember, I ended year 1 with the house torn apart. Most of the functional things were in, but most of the visible things that make the house look good were not. I wrote 3 posts last year to commemorate the paper anniversary. This year the anniversary should be cotton, but I’m still giving the house nothing but (green) paper. But let’s look back on what I accomplished. It seemed slow at the time, but now it looks… less slow.

I had 3 windows boarded up for about 3 months. I was wondering when they’d arrive, and when they did, I was smitten.

The chimney was relined (so my gas boiler won’t kill me). And do you remember what chaos it was to get the heat temporarily reconnected so I could test out the boiler? Of course it was my dad’s genius that allowed it to pass.

And not long after that I got the bathroom floor and a usable toilet. Remember how excited I was about the toilet? Now you do. This was exciting because I was on to pretty things and instant gratification. Right?

Siding the cantilevered was the first order of finish work. Why? Because not having it sided gave me a small water infiltration problem that forced me to push off the insulation job after I rigged a temporary fix onto the downspout. Also, I thought it made sense to get the hardest and most weather sensitive job done first. And clearly it was the right decision to work on ladders and scaffolding during the only part of the summer that turned out to be hot, before I had a working shower.

But… I was expecting it to be hard. I wasn’t expecting it to take 7 WEEKS!

Then there was tiling the bathroom. I had previously discovered that I got taken for a ride when I bought these tiles on Craigslist, and had to buy more retail. But at least they look good. And you have no idea how great it was to have a usable shower in my own home.

Then it was on to restoring the upstairs floors. I reinstalled them in one room, glued down to a new plywood subfloor. Easy? I thought it would be, but this was a 6 week job.

In the rest of the house, I patched damaged spots and glued plywood scraps up onto the underside of the floors. This also took ridiculously long. But it should look great when they’re sanded out, right?

I finally perfected the process of laminating drywall onto rigid foam onto soft old plaster on soft old clay brick walls with no studs. And then there were bedrooms! Sorta.

There was the patio door that I thought I couldn’t do right away. But I did! (with the Irishman’s help)

And really, would I have wanted to have this kind of mess later?

Then I started hiring the Irishman to help me every Saturday and all the drywall happened so fast I couldn’t keep up.

And I had the walls taped. No regrets hiring this out.

And we closed the year out with drywall primer. This feels like a really good transition point, no? You’ll hear more about it later. It’s not even done yet.

There were plenty of rough spots this year, but in the end, I think I’ve come forward plenty, no?