Any one for some chocolate???

Well there is some colour now in the house in various rooms. As referenced by the title the bedroom has it's "chocolate" brown colouration. I've even heard rumours that the brother was so enamoured with the colours they may repaint their bedroom as well :-):-):-). So how did all this colour get there and when is now the story.
I'll start on Monday with the plan of painting. However when I got to the house it was a little chilly. I had turned off the furnace the previous Saturday while doing some drywall in the basement and forgot to turn it back on. So I decided it would be a good time to finish all the drywall in the basement. Well by midday it was done, so I loaded up the truck with all the scrap drywall for delivery to the dump later that day. To finish off the day I installed all the plugs, switches, and lights in the basement with the exception of the north bedroom. Since this bedroom is all drywalled and mudded I might give it a coat of primer before I install the electrics.
Well by Tuesday the temp was just fine so we gave the ceiling a light sanding and the painted the second coat of flat ceiling paint. One thing I noticed right away was that I was having a lot of small threads in the paint at times. I initially thought it was the paint rollers but it happened with multiple rollers. In the end I think it was a multitude of issues. Some roller were better than others so age had a bearing as well I noticed that the second can of paint was better than the first. In the end it all worked out however I did spend some time during the painting to stop and remove blemishes. I really hoped that after this coat was done the ceiling would be done.
Well when I came into the house on Wednesday morning and looked at the ceiling I had to roll out at third coat. I'm sure this is when people would say you should of hired a pro. Well that may be the case but I'm still cheaper than they are. So another day was spent giving the ceiling a light sanding and then putting on a third coat. This time I was real careful and made sure there was good overlap as well as rolling in two directions at ninety degrees to each other.
So Thursday I came to the house and looked at the ceiling. It was not perfect. It was a lot better than before but there are still areas in sunlight where you can see roller marks. Well there would be no fourth coat. I'm leaving it as is and we'll see if maybe it changes with a little more time to dry. So I then went and painted the second coat of light brown in the Master bedroom on the rear wall and ceiling. I also painted the Master bath with a blue coloured paint. Man was this paint thick, you could almost spoon it out like porridge.  Well here us a picture of the bathroom.

So on Friday I decided to paint the stairwell as I had installed my scaffolding in there to be able to reach the ceiling to cut in the wall paint. So we climbed the scaffolding and cut in the wall paint. Since it was a little unstable I used painters tape to help with the cutting in so that I would not get any paint on the ceiling. Here is a pictures of the scaffold. I installed that scaffold and then used a piece of 2by10 lumber on the rungs of the scaffold and the stepladder. By standing on the 2by10 I was high enough to comfortably cut in the wall paint. The second picture is once the painting was all done before I removed the actual scaffold.

I then went and painted the second coat of blue in the bathroom and painted the first coat of dark brown in the master bedroom. Once you see this picture you'll understand the title of this piece.

I know that my brother is not fond of these colours but so far I am quite happy with them. Once the trim is in and the doors are installed it will be a nice cosy sleeping area.

So this brings us to today, Saturday. Well today we painted the living, dining room, kitchen and hallway. As the day progressed I became much more proficient at cutting in the paint at the wall/ceiling interface. It took some time but by mid afternoon these rooms were all done. Here are two photos showing this.

I have also picked up the material I needed for the underfloor heat in the master bathroom. I am using what is called Ditra heat from Schluter. Hopefully by the end of the week this will be installed and possibly the floor tiles as well. I also picked up the wood flooring for the Master bedroom so once the bathroom is finished we'll be able to install the flooring in the bedroom. I'll probably also take some time this week to work on the wiring for upstairs. After I put my second coat on the walls I'll be able to install all the plugs and light switches. After all the sooner that is done the sooner I can get my final electrical inspection. 

Well that's all for this week. I'll see you again in a weeks time.

Harold

And the painting continues

Well this week was all about painting, with a little bit of drywall and electrical thrown in for good measure. My guess is that I've got at least a week of solid painting to go and possibly more since I'll probably work on other things in between. As well I plan on letting the paint thoroughly dry between coats.
On Monday I spent time priming the spare bedroom, the spare bathroom as well as the front hallway. I only had the back entrance left to do but ran out of paint and since it was late in the day did not feel like opening a new can just for the one room.
So on Tuesday we opened the new can and finished the side entrance and the three small storage cubicles I have. By the time I was finished I had used up approximately 50 litres of paint through the entire main floor. I have a sinking feeling that the paint budget might be woefully inadequate. Oh well just one of the joys of building a house. Nothing every gets finished on time and nothing costs what you think it will.
On Wednesday I spent the day driving back and forth to London Ont to bring my Mom to visit with my brother for a few days during spring break. The brother and half the family brought her back today. So we spent no time at the house working.
On Thursday I spent the day starting to put up the first coat of Flat ceiling paint. Let me tell you painting white on white is not an ideal situation. I really wish I had bought that paint that changes colour when it dries so that you can see where you've been. You really had to look close sometimes to figure out where you stopped and started. Oh well just one of the joys of painting. Another one of the joys is painting the stairwell. Later on I plan on installing my scaffolding in there when I paint the final ceiling coat. Then once the ceiling is done I'll paint the two coats of wall paint before removing the scaffold. So for now to paint the corners we need to improvise to be able to reach 12ft above your head. Well as the attached picture shows this is how I improvised, I taped the brush to the extend-able painters stick.

On Friday finished up with the first ceiling coat and then put a coat of semi gloss in two of the storage cubby holes. I plan on using white semi gloss in all the closets as well. Once I finished the painting I spent some time downstairs installing some drywall  and installing plugs, switches and light fixtures. The circuits weren't livened up just wanted to put the fixtures in. I also went out and bought 16 more sheets of drywall and with the Brother in laws help brought them down stairs. Once they are installed I should be short just a couple of sheets but we'll she how that goes.
On Saturday I decided to paint the light brown paint that will go in my Master bedroom. I've decided that not only will this light paint go in the recess but it will also go on the ceiling. As the Brother stated when he came today, boy is this room going to be dark. Well that's the whole intention. I want a nice cosy dark room for sleeping in. Here are two pictures a before and after of what that first coat of brown looks like.

After cleaning up I decided to try and install all the drywall I had picked up yesterday so that I could see how many more sheets were required. Well did not quite get that done before the family showed up. However I anticipate I will need another three sheets and then the drywall installation will be complete. So we'll finish that next week Monday or Tuesday.

Well that's it for this week. Next week will be another week of painting and possibly some tile flooring work. Going to order the Ditra heat materials on Monday or Tuesday and should be able to install the Ditra material at least I hope by end of week.

Until then have great week.

Harold

The joys of painting

Well I will apologise right away because there will be no pictures with this blog entry. First of all I left the camera at the house and secondly the photos won't be all that different than the last few. After all how many times can you look at a picture of a room with just primed drywall.
It has been a decent week here. Sunshine has finally started to arrive and this of course brings warmer temperatures so that we will now be dealing with water, mud and settling fill around the foundation.
However on to the story. First of all the drywallers finished on Monday evening around 7pm after all the sanding was complete. During this time I had the furnace vents blocked as well the furnace was turned off. I ran my electric heater to keep temp up. While they were sanding upstairs I finished off the north basement bedroom such that it is ready for a coat of primer. Of course what do you need to do once they are finished, well clean house of course. I spent the next two days carefully cleaning all the dust and excess drywall mud up. I carefully wiped down the walls to get as much dust off them as possible without scratching the walls. I learned really quickly that this new drywall mud is really dainty. It does not take much to put a scratch into it. The mudding crew actually told me to leave the dust and just paint over it as a vacuum brush would scratch the drywall mud. Well maybe some of the painters do this however I was not about to paint over all that dust. I bought a fairly soft brush and carefully wiped down the walls and no scratches were left by my brush.
On Wednesday the plumber came down to install a dedicated dishwasher line from the HWT directly to where the DW will be. I added this last minute and thankfully the plumber had some free time so was able to come down and finalize this. Of course this also meant he could hand deliver the bill as well and get his cheque. Previously on Monday the gas inspector came and passed all the Gas work. So with these two items taken care of I can now finish the remainder of the drywall installation.
On Thursday and Friday I started priming the entire house. By end of day on Friday I estimate 70% of the house has been primed upstairs. Next week Monday I'll finish the priming and the start painting the ceiling with it's two coats of ceiling paint.
Today I spent the morning installing the remainder of the drywall I had in the basement. With this installed I can calculate how much more I need to finish all the drywall. Looks like I need another 14 sheets of drywall 4by8ft. I'll probably pick them up sometime next week and finish this chore during the week. In the afternoon went out with Mom and the sister and brother inlaw to choose some paint colours and to pick-up the bathroom tile I had decided on last week.  Always nice to have a feminine touch when doing this. I've chosen a dark brown for the bedroom, an off blue for the bathroom and for the majority of the house a cream colour. One extra splash will be a red wall behind the desk in the office area. It will take a few weeks but hopefully it all works out and the pictures will hopefully show this as well.
Other than dealing with a broken laptop that's been my week. Well that and a broken tooth that needs repairing but can't use glue on that.

Well until next week keep dry and lets hope that sunshine continues.

Harold

There is a light at the end of the tunnel

Well it's been a dirty week at the jobsite. That's one result of mudding and taping, you get a lot of pieces of mud on the floor. However the work is almost done. The drywaller figures to do the final sanding on Monday and if nothing goes wrong he'll be done and that should be the last of the trades people that need to be hired on the job until the brick work gets done later this spring. This won't be a long post in that other than drywalling not much else happened on the job site.

Yours truly did the following, I primed and then painted two coats of semi-gloss white in my storage room. I then livened up the electrical cct in that room which also includes the sump-pump. This allowed me to remove the extension cord I was using and thereby was able to fully close the cold cellar door. Here are two pictures showing the storage room all painted the sump pump is in the cold cellar behind the door in the first picture. Now all that I need to do to make it functional is install some shelving at the one end.

The only other thing I did this week was work on mudding the North basement bedroom. This is one of two completed rooms in the basement. The other is one of the rec rooms that is full of my tools and other junk. I did not work at a furious pace and left plenty of time for the mud to dry between coats. I have now finished mudding and am halfway through final sanding. Will the job be as good as the professionals upstairs, no. However I am improving and for a basement bedroom it is fine. The rest of my time was spent watching the drywallers work and doing crossword puzzles. For info here is a picture of the house at the end of today in the living room area. Sorry no picture of the bedroom.

Since the HVAC people have finished installing the heating system and hot water tank I can now have my gas inspection. Once that is done on Monday, and we pass, I will be able to finish installing the rest of my drywall in the basement. As well once the drywallers are finished I can go around clean up, finish sand, and then prime all the surfaces as well as finish painting the ceiling. I have a paint colour picked out for the bedrooms, now I just have to pick out a final colour for the walls of the rest of the house. Then we need to install the underfloor heat in the master bedroom, then choose tiles for the floor and above the shower, pick a vanity, etc etc. The decisions will be coming fast and furious now in the decoration department.

One little side note. I knew that I was building an airtight house. Well the proof has really been evident this past week. The humidity level in the house is almost off the scale. I've had to turn the HRV(heat recovery ventilator) on full time just to help get rid of the humidity. As well I have a dehumidifier working almost full time that fills up a bucket of water every 24hrs. It was working so hard that the unit froze solid and I had to use a heater to defrost it. Once the HRV was running we managed to get the humidity down to 58% however It needs to go lower which will happen as all the drywall mud dries. Once I've primed the walls I hope the HVAC guys return to install the proper thermostat for the furnace and HRV and then it will run as needed.

Earlier on my Blog I talked about having issues with my shingles not sitting flat and therefore being susceptible to strong winds. I complained to GAF about this and submitted a claim. Well they came back and denied my claim saying that Blow off is not covered by warranty when you do not hand seal the shingles during installation in cold weather. Nowhere in the letter did it talk about the problem in regards to raised shingle tabs. So I contacted them again and they said if I felt they made a mistake to ship more shingles to them with this problem and their lab will look into it. I don't think I will win but I intend to continue this fight as long as possible. Stayed tuned for a Youtube video on my issues.

Last week I mentioned going to an interview with Home Depot. Well at this time they have advised me that they will keep my application on file but that they have no openings for me. Oh well maybe one of the other applications I submitted will come to fruition. Building a house can be quite expensive especially if you want to do it right.

Well thats it for now. The sun is starting to shine the temp is warming up and summer is on its way. Now if only the lottery gods would shine upon me as well.

Harold