Master Bedroom Ceiling Done!

The drywall guys are out of here!  They've been super nice, but it's been a long haul.  We're ready to move back into our bedroom- as soon as the tub gets moved out of here!

View from the main hallway

They did some work on the walls too, which was really great of them.  

The electrician put the new ceiling fan in.

View from the corner next to the closet

As mentioned, we had quite a few guests arriving (and some staying overnight) for Thanksgiving.  I needed to get the bedrooms back into shape, but couldn't do that until we could get the master bedroom furniture moved out of the kids rooms.  Now we could get that started!

Master Bedroom Drywall- almost there!

They have two days of work left in here... the third/finishing coat, and then sanding.

From the hallway door

Reverse- bathtub STILL sitting there (sigh)

There were some cracks that developed (or got worse) as the construction proceeded, so they fixed those up too!

Exterior wall

Master Bedroom- sheetrock

After the water damage, and ripping down the ceiling, and then adding some framing for the new sheet rock, they've finally gotten started on sheetrocking the master bedroom ceiling!

View from the hall doorway

Note the bathtub still sitting there!!!  Grrrr....

Framing Bedroom Ceiling

With the upstairs tiling complete (and that equipment out of our master bedroom), they were finally able to make some progress on the framing of the ceiling so that new drywall can go up!

Happily, they got rid of the old ceiling fan.  I love having a fan in the bedroom, just not that one!  We have picked out a new one that has lights.

Doorway into new master bath

It's been over four weeks that we've been crammed into the boys bedrooms, so I'm excited to see some progress here!

Pulling things together

Back when we refinished the attic into the media room, I think I neglected to mention an interesting construction detail that was under the floorboards up there... luckily, with the opening up of the ceiling in the master bedroom I was able to take better photos to document with!

There are several heavy duty cables that are added support for the sides of the house...

Our guess is that since they put the slate roof right on top of the shake roof (about a hundred years ago), the weight may have been causing bowing sometime after that.  So they added several of these contraptions to help hold things together.  The architects said that everything is sound- so nothing to be concerned about. The county historian had toured the house last summer and said that she's seen this method used on old houses before.

Master Bedroom Ceiling

Having the downstairs of the house in complete disarray just wasn't enough- ha ha!

Back when we were waiting for the roof to go on, there was lots of rain... which caused some damage to the master bedroom ceiling.

The ceiling in there wasn't in great shape to begin with, but this made it a necessity to get re-done.  Plus, we figured that while the sheetrock guys were here, and the house is a dusty mess right now from the other drywall work, it makes sense to do it now.

That meant we needed to clear out the bedroom...

Since our contractor & drywall guys agreed it would be faster & cheaper if we did the demo of the old ceiling ourselves, Mike got to work...

It was a super messy job.

The lath needed to come down, plus there was a ton of fuzzy insulation that got everywhere!

Mixed in was the old corn cob "insulation"...

We bagged up all of this mess.  It had to be carted downstairs, out the front door, and Mike positioned the tractor to load them into.  He could then easily dump them into the dumpster in the backyard.

We got lots of cars slowing down to check out what was going on with the tractor in front of the house!

We were able to get 13 bags out before it was too late and dark to continue.
Here's a picture taken the next morning with how much was left...

It took one more day to clear out the rest, and now it's feeling much better.

It was a total of 27 contractor garbage bags full!

The contractor needs to do some framing for the guys to hang the sheetrock from.

Mike brought up some of the left over insulation to use in the eave area, where it may be a little drafty.

The downside is that the four of us are now crammed into the two boys' rooms (along with all of the furniture, clothing, rug, etc. from our bedroom).  Hoping this doesn't take too long!

Break Through- Second & Third Floor!

The dust is now throughout the house, since there are holes everywhere.

Oh well- at least it's progress!

Here's what's going on for the second floor...

Main Hallway Opening

This opening will be into the laundry room

Master Bedroom Opening

This will open into the Master Bath & Closet

They have put the plastic up, but are holding off on braking through on this one.

Here's the progress up on the third floor...

Attic Opening

Looking up from 2nd floor landing

Ugh, these photos remind me of all that wallpaper removal & spackling we did!  

Looking across from between Media Room/Linen Closet doorways

 This was exciting because we got the first peek into the new attic space!

Electrical Update- Master Bedroom

And finally, here's where we are with the electrical work in the Master Bedroom...

We wanted to add an outlet in here.  We only have one outlet on the other side of the room (very common to have an outlet shortage in houses built before the advent of electricity!)

BEFORE

Unfortunately, they tried to snake the wire down from the attic and they can't get through.  There's some sort of cross beam or solid structure in that wall (not totally suprising, since it's an exterior wall).

So, now we have two holes that need to be patched & painted (ugh!)  Our new plan is to have the outlet added when we do the extension, since we'll be adding new construction to the other side of this wall.

AFTER- FAIL!

But it wasn't all bad news for this room... we did get a light switch installed!

BEFORE

AFTER- but needing a new switch plate!

I was amazed when we moved into this house and there were NO overhead lights in any of the bedrooms- just ceiling fans (with pullchains).

Step one of remedying this is complete.  We now have a light switch to turn the fan on & off.

Of course, there's always a little unexpected excitement... apparently there was very little holding the fan to the ceiling above our bed!  It required some framing work (which was easily accessed from the open attic floor).  I'm now worried about the support structure holding the fans in the kids' rooms- we'll be checking that out!

Anyways, I wish I had thought to buy a new light fixture for here before this stage of the electrical work (like we did for the attic hallway) but I didn't even think of it.  I hope to have them install a new fixture for us when they come back to finish up the attic!


Related posts:
The Electric Plan
The Attic Electric
The Upstairs & Attic Hallway Electric 

Catching Up- May 2013

We've had a super busy May- including a Disney trip and a family wedding, resulting in far fewer house updates than usual!
While we have lots of house stuff planned to get done in June, here are some odds & ends that we did get done this month!


We picked up some hanging plants to decorate the front porch.







I also hung up the birdcage that my brother got me for Christmas...

Just this past weekend, I gave the wicker furniture a quick clean up with a fresh coat of paint.  But before I put the furniture on there I was hoping to get the wood flooring sealed.  I had already scrubbed it down to prepare it, but it seems like it's been raining just before or during every free weekend we've had since!  So, that's on the list for June!

Our gardens are now blooming... so I've been taking photos to make into prints to add to my hallway art collection.

Speaking of artwork...
For Mother's Day, my mom and I got to treat ourselves to some antiquing, while Mike & my dad watched the kids.  We found a couple of great little shops that we hadn't been to before.  One of them had this oil painting (by a local artist) for $20.





It was unframed, but the colors were perfect for our bedroom and I knew I had some old frames up in the attic.  So that made a fun artwork update for the bedroom!



More artwork that we're finishing up is from our Disney trip...

At the Magic Kingdom, we had silhouettes done of the boys.  It's incredible to see the guy cut out their profiles so quickly!  And definitely a bargain at only $8 per person!
You get two silhouettes of each person, so I'm framing & hanging one and putting the other in their baby books.

You can buy frames there, but the only ones offered were plastic- and I knew I had 5x7 wood frames in the attic that would look better!  I've already painted them black.
I'll update with photos of them once they are hung!

Earring holder

Another project inspired by a Pinterest Pin...
This time it's an earring holder originally created by Jen at I Heart Organizing

I had this antique frame up in the attic (picked it up at a yard sale years ago).

We had a section of the metal sheet from when we repaired the radiator cover in my son's room.  We cut it down so it would fit inside the frame.

The gold coloring didn't go with the purple/silver colors in my room, so I spray painted it silver.

Once it dried, I just popped it into the frame.
Done!