adios wood paneling!

Goodbye paneling, hello world of drywall.

Would you say it was a freudian slip that as I type "Hello world of drywall" my first go round it read "Hell world of drywall". For anyone who has spent anytime with it, you understand. . . Although my Dad corrected me last night- I really hadn't been dry walling, I had been kind of helping put it up. Logistics! I overcame my fear of standing on the top ladder step as I fixed insulation in the peek of the ceiling of the living room, felt a strong dislike for having to put plastic up everywhere as a moisture barrier. Oh did I mention? We replaced a lot of the insulation after tearing the paneling off prior to putting up drywall. In fact as I'm getting paged from work even though I don't start for another three hours I'm looking at the wall thinking you have no idea when you asked "I hate to bother you, are you in the middle of something?"

So that you can begin to appreciate this- one of the issues my Dad had with this particular house was the siding on the right fireplace side bowed out in a spot- although the foundation hadn't moved, fireplace stiff in place, the siding was bowing... well he found the reason after he opened up the wall and had to replace a few studs- the studs the builder had used had bowed out, pushing the siding of the house out. Un-nailing the siding, fixing some studs and re-nailing hours later ...voila ! We have perfect siding.

Now I know I skipped ahead a few beats but I'm going to catch you up so that you too can have as much fun as we are having on the daily basis here at Valeria Spa and Salon- ha ha ha!



To the left is the original sleep station # 1 in the living room, it is hard to tell with the photo quality but that is the old paneling and small single window that has been replaced by the double window and drywall !

Below is another photo of the very much lacking front wall of the living room. You can see the progression of the work- sleep stations have been moved to the bedrooms and we now have living room furniture being stored in the middle of the room and covered in an attempt to salvage until the remodeling is done and I hope to purchase new!




Next came drywall after the sheer pleasures of tearing down all the old paneling and fixing the insulation.See how much better it is with no paneling, new window and new floors!?

So...as we're in the middle of this and we're debating about french doors, no doors, what kind of door(s) I want coming from the kitchen to the living room my Dad mentions a pocket door. Now that the pocket door I decided would be great is finally cased in and I'd say nearly done he won't admit it, but I'm guessing he regretted at some point offering this as a choice. It was necessary to make a choice at this point so we could finish the drywall on that end of the room. You may notice there's only drywall on the upper 2/3 of the wall that is because I hope to put a waynes coating(not sure this is the proper name/spelling) on the lower 1/3.

Pocket door! The original opening was 30inches but I wanted the biggest you could do with the pocket door so we went for 36inch. My Dad surprised me with a 6 panel door for this opening as we'll continue to watch for a 15 light door to put in this pocket!

What I came home from work to...

We all like surprises every now and then, right?
... The conversation with my Dad went like this (I call home about 8pm Friday night while eating dinner at work).
Me "Hi Dad, what's going on?"
Dad "Oh,,, not too much"
Me "What'd you work on today?"
Dad " Oh you know, nothing much... I got a little bored today"
Me "WHAT? How could you possibly be bored?"
Dad "Well I kind of came to a standstill on the floor, the drywall needs little pieces, you know"
Me " Is there a hole in the wall Dad? Is there a hole in MY WALL DAD?"
Dad "Noo, no hole right now"
Me "Did you cut a hole in the wall today Dad? Did you demo something Dad ?"
Dad "Nope, no hole right now, I'll see you when you get home"
Me "You are so lucky I'm at work, I will see you tonight!"

When I got home this is what I saw, except it was dark and he had respectfully boarded it shut!

The old window was completely gone, shutters down. I had left my father alone in my home for over 10 hours.

I'm outback mowing the grass and I hear my Dad yelling for backup. He and Steven had cut "just a tiny bit in the side of the house for the new windows, could I come clean the boards up?" Not to mention work some magic on the inside of the house too. (Recall the living room had paneling so to fit the window we had to take down all the paneling on this wall, then comes drywall!)

For those of you new to home revamping a shop vac is a must have!

...What happened next I'll keep to my family and the neighbors...As the sun started to set tonight I walked two houses down and asked for lifting help from our neighbor. I joke you not, his family and the couple next door came walking down the road. Next thing I knew our man power had nearly tripled!The good news is the window is in place and just needs the trimming/shimming/finishing work!





...and if you turn 180 degrees this is what you see behind you!The living room is coming together, the floors are down, the new door is in place- the window is settling in and next step will be putting in drywall on the remaining two walls of paneling.


This weekend alone we got the window in, finished the floor and Steven seeded/fertilized the front yard in an attempt to grow grass that matches. That's a whole different topic for a different day!

Here's the jeep with the "yard things"

in the back!
Who said a jeep isn't a multi-purpose vehicle?!