Fighting, Mudding, and Flooring

This week started out pretty rough but then ended out pretty awesome.

The rough part was the ginormous phone/text fight my mom and I got into on Tuesday. It was pretty bad. And while I'm sure you're dying to know all the nitty gritty details of he said/she said (I know I would be!?), that would be pretty unfair, as I am obviously biased as to how things went down. But lets just say that we both released a lot of pent up feelings, my mom finally learned how to text (hooray!), and I almost got fired...yes, by my mom.

By the next day, when my mom came to Logan to pick up flooring from Lowes, we had both cooled off and all was forgiven and right in the world, AND I still had a job. I realized I needed make an effort to be nicer and more respectful of my mom's feelings and opinions, and my mom said she would be willing to try my sequence of finishing things...hard floor, then trim, then paint, which was so nice of her. And I love her for it. I love how in our family we can argue one day, and then forgive each other the next. Sometimes you just need to clear the air, you know!? No need to disown (or fire!?) one another for it...right!? We know we love each other, even if we disagree sometimes. And this weekend, things could honestly not have been better between my mom and I. We had the best time working together.    

So, last weekend sheetrock was hung, which totally made the house feel brand spankin' new. It was love at first sight when I saw it on Thursday afternoon...

And this weekend the sheetrockers from Hall Sheetrocking came back to tape, mud, and texture. They completely rocked our world. With the power of 4 guys and some fancy, fast-drying mud these guys were able to tape, mud, and texture the entire house in a mere 2 days. Pretty awesome.  I'm pretty sure our electrician and plumber could take a few lessons from these guys.

The bill for sheetrocking this entire house came to $5,000.00 in labor, and $2,200 in materials (sheetrock and mud)...totalling $7,200.00. Worth every penny, I'm pretty sure.

And while the sheetrockers did their thing, my mom and I installed the upstairs tub surround, and layed laminate flooring in the 2.5 bathrooms...which we immediately covered with protective butcher paper, of course...  

The color is pretty dark. Darker than I remember it being at the store, but I totally love it. It will provide a great contrast to the whiteness of the bathrooms and the tan-ness of the hickory vanities that we purchased for each of the full bathrooms. We weren't able to put flooring in the kitchen/dining area, as the sheetrockers were everywhere all the time and we would have totally been in their way. So by noon on Saturday we had done all we could, and were done for the weekend.

On Saturday morning we had our sheetrockers, our plumber, and our electrician there...all hard at work. It was fabulous. The plumber was going to try to finish up completely on Saturday. We're still not sure when our electrician will be done, but he is at least done enough to be out of our way, and our one working outlet is suitable enough. As long as he finishes up sometime in the next three weeks so we can install and test light fixtures and such, I'll be happy.

Next week we will be finishing the flooring in the kitchen/dining room, installing 12 doors, trimming everything out (windows, doors, closet shelving, baseboards. etc), and caulking everything that we trim. It should be a great week for us, as we will be able to work on the house for four days instead of two. I'll be there Wednesday afternoon through Saturday, only taking a break on Thursday for Thanksgiving for dinner at the Teicherts. Happy Thanksgiving to us...we'll be working all day!?

And here is what a pile of $1000.00 worth of trim looks like...  

Wish us luck!