Tag Archives: projects

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Beam/ceiling repair project day 5… no more hole.

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Work continued on day 5, with the focus on prepping the surface for drywall.

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We have one of those stupid popcorn ceilings and I’m not lying when I say it makes a mess.

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But by the end of the day it was sufficiently scraped… and drywall covered the giant hole.

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By removing all those stupid little pieces of useless plywood the contractor found up there, he was able to give the beam a much lower and less defined profile than it had before .

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It’s still there, but no where near as deep, which is nice.

Next step will be mudding. (Which spellcheck just changed to muffins. You can never go wrong with muffins, but I don’t think they’d give us nearly the smooth finish we’re hoping for.)

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The end should be in sight now…

Though I know His Lordship is going to miss the plastic room.

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Beam/ceiling repair project, day 4… where a little snag was hit.

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Things started out well early that morning with Lord Dudley Mountcatten innocently gazing at the plastic room.

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Yes, I’m talking about you.

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He knows he’s not supposed to go in there, so of course it’s the only place he wants to be…

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And before long our smiling, happy contractor was busy replacing the insulation and installing strapping for the sheet rock.

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By mid afternoon he had both sides of the beam done…

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And the ceiling was ready for the next phase.

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Which is when he hit a snag.

Thankfully it wasn’t with the project per se, but when it started drizzling outside and he set up his saw in the garage to stay dry… things went a little haywire.

We love Tom. He’s a very clean and conscientious worker. So when he started cutting things in the garage, he turned on his shop vac to suck up the sawdust and splinters at the same time… but in doing so he also overloaded our sometimes squirrelly electrical system and knocked out power to the entire garage and part of my laundry room.

This resulted in a solid hour of trying to figure out why.

Thankfully Tom knows his way around electricity and after removing a few outlets, testing various circuits and doing a whole lot of other things I can’t explain…. he had it up and running again and would be able to resume work.

Until my husband came home a few minutes later and decided it was time to call it quits and consume adult beverages in the man cave.

No sheet rock was installed that day.

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But at least we had garage lights to illuminate our way home.

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Beam/ceiling repair project, day 3 …. blissfully uneventful.

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Day three was noisy but relative smooth sailing.

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Excess wood… that served no purpose other than to act as useless shims… was removed, and everything was repositioned, leveled and put back where it should be.

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Extra heavy duty hangers were installed on both sides…

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And all the rafters were secured to the beam as they should have been 30 years ago.

When the contractor left for the day?

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His Lordship was on the move.

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He thinks we put up the plastic room just for him.

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Beam/ceiling repair project, day two…. good news is usually too good to be true.

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Our contractor started bright and early on day two but it turns out the good news from day one wasn’t all good.

No, the beam doesn’t need to be replaced but the overall support structure needs work which required a temporary load bearing wall to be built inside the plastic cave. .

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Turns out whoever built this addition back in ‘94 didn’t do a good job with the rafters.

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It’s hard to get proper pictures of the problem but things are separating and that’s not good.

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I’m no carpenter, but the fact that those tiny nails trying to grab onto the beam have been the only things holding up part of our living room roof was a little concerning.

The repair options were these:

1. Hire a structural engineer (at considerable cost) to come in and completely rip apart the entire addition roof, replace the beam and redo all the rafters and trusses.

Or….

2. Since the existing beam is solid (and has miraculously held everything in place for the past 30 years with virtually no support) have our contractor square everything, redo the rafter and truss supports, add heavy duty hangers, and make sure everything is properly secured.

Needless to say we chose door number two.

Since our contractor isn’t a structural engineer he can’t guarantee things won’t sag in another 30 years but realistically, my husband will probably be gone and I’ll be in an old folks home… so who cares?

🤣

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Work continues, in a very small space and in the pouring rain. It would be nice if the saws and power tools could be set up on the back deck but we’re having monsoon downpours right now.

It’s always something.

🥴

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Beam/ceiling repair project, day one… that’s what I call a mess.

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Work has begun on the ceiling repair/beam replacement project and yes, it’s a serious mess.

Things started slowly….

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And the dust barrier made for an interesting silhouette.

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Can’t say I’ve ever had a plastic wrapped room but if it saves me from dusting, I’m all for it.

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Inside the plastic cell, things were not as clean.

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Ceiling sections on both sides of the beam had to be removed …

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And if nothing else, it made me glad flooring replacement is next on the remodeling bucket list.

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Work for the day ended here with some good news for a change. At first glance the contractor doesn’t think the beam has been structurally damaged which means repairs would just be cosmetic. He’ll know more tomorrow when he starts ripping things apart, but the original shoddy construction did leave him puzzled.

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Numerous little pieces of plywood were nailed over the beam for no apparent reason.

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Once all that comes down he’ll do a thorough inspection to make sure everything is safe and hopefully get right to putting things back to normal.

My fingers are crossed. Not having to replace the beam will save a lot of time and money.

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As you can imagine, Lord Dudley Mountcatten was not pleased with today’s events and spent the entire afternoon under our bed.

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He did venture out at night to inspect the changes.

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And managed to wiggle his way under the plastic.

Cats.

They know no boundaries.

😉

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The next project begins.

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Our house is a bit disorganized at the moment. There’s a bench in front of the office closet..

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Living room coffee tables are in the den…

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And an arm chair is blocking the front door.

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Things are where they shouldn’t be because the contractor is going to start work on the beam and ceiling from Hell this week .

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Since the roof leak has finally been fixed, it’s time to get rid of this eyesore.

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To which I say…

Yay!

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Finito! Well… almosto.

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The contractor is gone, for now… and the back deck work is finished.

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Well, almost finished.

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And while we now have steps and pretty white skirting….

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You have to be a little careful where you walk.

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Because our builder was slightly off on his calculations….

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And we’re still waiting for the three more boards that had to be special ordered.

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He’s promised not to charge for picking them up or installing them so it’s fine.

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Just be careful when you step out the back door.

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😊

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A man and his ditch.

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My husband is not happy.

Not in any way, shape, or form.

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Every time he goes outside he gravitates to the hideous Grand Canyon we now have at the edge of our property.

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Talk about an eyesore. People are literally walking by with their mouths open. A few have even stopped in to ask… why?

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What a mess. And aside from the fact they took a good two feet of our lawn? They couldn’t even be bothered to do it uniformly, and that rankles.

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Let’s forget that it looks like a giant gaping maw…the whole purpose of the project was to stop the caving in and erosion.

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See the stripes? That’s what happened after the first rain. All the seed and hay flowed to the bottom…

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And we had intermittent washouts. Which is exactly what we had before.

It’s maddening.

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In case you’re wondering, it’s three feet in that spot. In some places it’s three and a half. Won’t that be fun to mow…

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Assuming we can ever get grass to grow there again.

Sigh…

😫

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The one where His Lordship investigates the deck project…

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Work has been progressing on the deck and the other day it was finally time for Lord Dudley Mountcatten to check things out.

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He approached warily, and then took a detour.

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To the stack of unused boards

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And then to the stack of extra wood, which he promptly climbed on and knocked over scaring himself to death.

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I laughed, so he jumped back on the deck boards and gave me the evil eye.

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When he finally ascended to the half finished deck, he explored a bit…

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And plopped.

We tend to do more sitting than walking on our outdoor excursions. His Lordship does not like to waste energy unnecessarily.

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But when he’d had enough fresh air?

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He paced back and forth in front of the door….

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Not understanding why I wouldn’t jump across the divide to open it.

So instead…

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He plopped, and seemed to approve of the new decking materials.

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Life’s a ditch… the nightmare result.

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After arguing with state officials for a month and pleading with them to let us fill in our collapsing ditch, this was their answer.

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A veritable Marianas trench at the end of our front lawn.

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It’s huge.

More than twice as wide than it was.

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It’s ugly.

A massive scar on the landscape.

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See the gravel? They were supposed to replace that with dirt and seed it.

They didn’t.

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See the sloping sides on which the temporary mailbox they refused to move sits? They were supposed to build those up so they wouldn’t collapse.

They didn’t.

This is worse than it was before.

A total nightmare.

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