So I promised an announcement today… and here it is!
As I mentioned in the previous post, we visited the Grand Canyon yesterday…
What I didn’t mention, was that I took this opportunity to ask Chantale to marry me… And she said yes! So now it is official! Here’s a shot of her new ring enjoying the view of the Grand Canyon from the spot where I asked the question…
Our second day of traveling has been fairly uneventful… We tried to make up time lost the day before so we’d be closer to Vegas…
First thing, we stopped at Wal-Mart in Helena and loaded up with some food… That place has everything! And it’s sure handy having a 12V Cooler in the car so we can prepare food on the way, instead of spending a bunch of money on fast food.
The path through Idaho and Utah was extremely scenic as we got into the mountains… The van was having a hard time climbing some of those hills!
We stopped for lunch at a rest area that had a nearby trail, called “Hell’s Half Acre”, so we walked around that and snapped a few pictures of what was a lava flow a few thousand years ago… Pretty interesting to see all the hardened lava and holes where the rock was so heavy that it caved into the ground below…
We plan to head into Vegas today (Monday) and check out the sights… We will upload more pictures when we get there!
Yep, it’s a new toy all right… stay tuned, I’ll tell you more about it later… for now I just thought I’d put up some drool-worthy pics 
Chantale took a vacation in July (without me!) and visited her family in Quebec… You can view the pictures by clicking on the album link below:
We have acquired a new cat! Her name is Mia, and she’s quite the cat… she is coloured very much like a Siamese cat, but isn’t a full blown Siamese. She’s very friendly, although her claws do tend to get in the way every now and then. She enjoys spending time with Max, playing with Sasha, and watching the fish!
It has been a busy several months, and I am sincerely sorry for not updating the site… I know we have thousands of people hanging onto every word… waiting to find out what we’ve accomplished…
We’ve pretty much finished the basement, except for some final touches. we put down laminate flooring and had carpet installed. We laid a subfloor in the bathroom, and then laid vinyl flooring in my workroom, the bathroom, and the laundry room.
We found the vinyl flooring fairly easy to install. To make it easier, we cut it to approximately the right size, and then carefully moved it into place. The final result turned out great!
The bathroom went together fairly painlessly… The corner shower was simple to install, the sink was easy, but the toilet was a bit of a pain. The closet flange installed by the plumber had an outer ring that could spin around the inner flange. Since the flange was set in concrete, we figured it wouldn’t be necessary to affix the outer flange to the concrete. Boy, were we wrong. Upon tightening the toilet down, we heard a loud snapping sound, and lifted the toilet to find that the outer ring had separated from the inner flange. We hammered it back on, and then went to Home Depot to get some concrete screws to hold it in place. Once that was done, all was good!
Aside from all of this, we have assembled my new desk, installed all the recessed lighting, finished off all the electrical, and done most of the trim work. We’ve also installed the suspended ceiling in the laundry room, and installed all of the doors but one. We are so close to complete, that we’ve even moved the TV and some chairs into the basement family room. I am now also using my basement office, having moved all my stuff downstairs.
I know there’s lots of little things left to do, but I’m in no rush to do them, since it’s summer and I need to save some projects for winter!
Here’s a list of things that have happened since we got back from Christmas break in Quebec…
We finished hanging drywall… 92 sheets total (We had to pick up TWO more sheets at Rona to finish it)… (Why Rona? Because the Home Depot van was broken!) … That’s a lot of drywall. A hint aimed at the very start of the project (framing) that concerns hanging drywall… Be VERY aware of where your drywall sheets will start and end. Always plan for studs to be at the start and end. Double them up if necessary. If you are hanging drywall vertically (Something I wish I had done) be absolutely certain that you have studs at the 4 foot marks, dead on, to support the edges. You will be much happier when it comes to hanging drywall if you do this. And why do I wish I had hung the drywall vertically instead of horizontally? It’s possible it would have created more seams, BUT, all of those seams would have tapered edges. Two horizontal sheets butted end to end create a seam that is very hard to hide.
I modified/installed the plumbing for the laundry room… It doesn’t look like much, but I had to move the pipes quite a bit to bring them out from the wall, and put new fittings on everywhere… A retrospective hint for hanging drywall, with respect to where your fittings might go… Consider where the edges of the drywall will go while installing fixtures (such as this laundry box) or electrical outlets. Keeping these kinds of things away from drywall seams WILL make your mudding job that much easier. It’s hard to pull a straight seam of mud when you are running into boxes, holes, etc.
We mudded… and sanded…
and mudded… and sanded…
and mudded… and sanded… (rinse and repeat about 20 times, you get the picture…) I have to say, of this whole project mudding has been my least favorite part. With framing, or insulating, or hanging drywall, or installing electrical, you do it once, and you’re done. And it actually feels like progress is being made. With mudding, you do it once… then twice… then three times… and so on, and it never really feels like you’re making much progress. Hints for mudding? This is a hard one to give hints on, it really is a “learn from practice” kind of thing… Most important, don’t put on too much with each application. In fact, if you’re not taking almost all of it off, you’re doing something wrong. You shouldn’t have to sand between each coat, except a bit to get rid of ridges. For screw holes in a line, try to mud across all of them together… it will create a more consistent look, and you’ll be less likely to see any single screw hole. For easy clean up, buy (or borrow (maybe even from me!)) a pole and hand sander that have a vacuum port on them. You’d be surprised how much dust you kick up without them. I could go on and on about this part of the job, since it took so long, but if you really want to know more just ask! When you are finally done mudding, it’s a great excuse for a celebration, as we move onto the next step…
Cutting! It’s hard to see in this picture, but the ceiling has newly cut holes for the recessed light fixtures we picked out. A few “words of wisdom” to those trying a similar project… First, cut the holes before you paint, and preferably before you prime! If you use pencil on the ceiling, you don’t want it to show up through the paint, and you want to see where your marks are. Second, find a scrap piece of drywall, and test cut your holes (I used my handy Mastercraft Maximum rotary tool with circle guide) and try to fit the light fixtures into them. Adjust the circle cutter until you get the holes just right, and lock the cutter into position. This makes it much easier to cut the holes. Third, when cutting the holes, you can’t press the center pin in until you have cut into the drywall… so, make sure you push the cutting bit into drywall *inside* the circle, and then slowly move it outwards until you can push the center pin into the drywall where you marked your center.
Priming! I like priming… It’s relatively easy, and the walls suddenly take on a whole new look… They go from drab gray to spotty/blotchy white, but it’s an improvement. A bit of light really brightens the room when it’s got a coat of primer on it. The next step was to paint the entire ceiling… That took two coats of white ceiling paint, and once again really brought out the lights. It feels much more complete! I don’t know if we used as much primer as we should have… After I was done I saw a Holmes on Homes show where they recommended to put it on thick (push hard with the roller)… I put it on thick, but nowhere near as much as they did… It still turned out ok though!
And now painting! This is the first coat in my office, and is also the same colour used in my storage/work room. It’s a deep green colour, but once dry has a great feel to it, very calm. This coat went on two nights ago. A couple handy hints for painting… If you are going to put on crown moulding, you can be far more lenient on the top corners. Also, buy several tray liners at Home Depot ($2 each!) and save yourself the trouble of cleaning paint trays! Tonight, we moved into the living room area and painted the first coat of two different colours… But those pictures will be a surprise for next time! Wait until you see the colours we picked!
This has been one long post, but I haven’t posted any in a LONG time, so I have an excuse. I should really put together a hints page of things I’ve learned during each stage of this project… It might help people in the future!
