Tag Archives: projects

At least someone is enjoying the nightmare.

September 23, 2023 Rivergirl 18 Comments

This beam and ceiling repair project has been disruptive to say the least. We’ve lost our living room, our dining room, egress to the back deck and most importantly… the large television my husband is utterly devoted to watching. Sawdust, wood chips and dry wall fragments have been flying and I can’t even imagine the mess I’ll have to clean up when it’s finished.

I hate to say it…. but moving probably would have been easier.

Though while the husband and I have been inconvenienced, there’s one member of our family who seems to be having fun.

You can see his ghostly reflection on the floor in the middle of that photo.

Lord Dudley Mountcatten, who is not supposed to be walking around in the plastic room… is constantly found doing just that.

And even when I don’t physically catch him in there?

I find evidence of his presence.

Unless our contractor has a thing for catnip mice, which is another blog topic entirely.

His Lordship seems to think the plastic walls have been erected exclusively for his playing pleasure and has a habit of pulling the sheets from their corners and making entrance holes.

Look at him.

The very picture of innocence…

But not for long.

Cats.

They will not be denied…

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Beam/ceiling repair project, day 6 and 7.

September 22, 2023 Rivergirl 24 Comments

Not much exciting or even mildly humorous to report now. And if you’ve ever done drywall mudding you’ll know why.

It’s a tedious time consuming process made even more unenjoyable by the fact that it all has to be done over our contractor’s head. My shoulders and neck are spasming just thinking about it.

Scrape, tape, mud, smooth, let dry.

Repeat.

The fact that it keeps raining and the dew point is high makes the quick dry mud anything but so a fan has been strategically placed to aid the process.

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Apparently down is harder than up.

September 21, 2023 Rivergirl 16 Comments

Lord Dudley Mountcatten is still fascinated with the temporary plastic room.

But the other day he stepped it up a notch.

Literally…

I walked by and saw he had climbed the ladder the contractor left behind and apparently found himself the perfect bird watching perch.

Perfect until he tried to get down that is.

After laughing and filming his blog worthy attempt… I rescued his silly butt and lowered him to the floor.

Unharmed, but definitely embarrassed.

🤣

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

September 21, 2023 Rivergirl 21 Comments

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

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

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

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 .

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.)

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.

September 20, 2023 Rivergirl 21 Comments

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

Yes, I’m talking about you.

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

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

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

And the ceiling was ready for the next phase.

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.

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

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

September 19, 2023 Rivergirl 17 Comments

Day three was noisy but relative smooth sailing.

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.

Extra heavy duty hangers were installed on both sides…

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

When the contractor left for the day?

His Lordship was on the move.

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.

September 15, 2023 Rivergirl 20 Comments

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. .

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

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

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?

🤣

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.

September 14, 2023 Rivergirl 28 Comments

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

Things started slowly….

And the dust barrier made for an interesting silhouette.

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

Inside the plastic cell, things were not as clean.

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

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

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.