Or, why we should have hired a professional to begin with!

In our previous house, we did a lot of drywalling ourselves, and gradually learned basically how to do it, though I'd say much of our good results were due to extremely detailed and miserable sanding.  My husband got to be fairly proficient at putting down the mud on the seams though.

If you've never drywalled, basically it starts with screwing sheets of drywall (a.k.a Sheetrock or gypsum board) to the studs of your room.  This step also involves carefully cutting out holes for the power receptacles, light fixture electrical boxes and junction boxes, and openings for doors and windows.  Typical tools for cutting include a Stanley knife or similar, and a drywall saw and keyhole saw.  Big pieces of drywall can be trimmed to size by scoring the board with the utility knife using a straight-edge (or free-handing it carefully), then snapping the board along the scored edge and cutting the paper backing with the utility knife.

Once you've hung your drywall up (carefully butting the seams together, etc... visit askthebuilder.com and search for drywall, he's got all the details there), then you start taping the seams, using joint compound (or "mud") to cover the joints, then applying additional coats of mud to smooth out the seams to give the walls a smooth appearance. 

And for non-pro's there's usually a good deal of sanding between coats of joint compound.

Here's what happened to us in our current remodeling project.

Once the steel I-beam had taken the place of our load-bearing wall, our carpenters fitted the beam with some 1" wood to allow drywall to be attached to it.  We had them put some windows into the room, and then started hanging some drywall sheets.  We ended up hiring the carpenters to help hang the ceiling (for which we also rented a drywall lift to push the sheets up to the ceiling and make installation easier), as well as to stud out a soffit and around the exposed jack holding up the I-beam. 

Total cost for the two guys to help my husband and father finish hanging the drywall = $1500. 

Rental of the lift = $45

Plus the sheets of drywall ($7 an 8' sheet or so).

And the fancy self-loading screwdriver my husband bought for shooting screws into the sheets quickly ($180).

We had decided long ago to hire someone to mud after we had the sheets up.  Dealing with joint compound is not one of our favorite activities.  I contacted all my friends in the area for a recommendation for a dry-waller. Not many suggestions surfaced.  I picked a random contractor from the phone book and he agreed to take a look at it.  He was willing to do it, but it would be a week before he could start.  We are trying to keep things moving along here (baby coming), and with no one else getting back to us in that day or two, we made a hasty and foolish decision... to go ahead and mud the walls ourselves.

However, I can't be of much help, especially when it comes to bending low or getting up on ladders. So this would mean my husband had a lot of work to do by himself.  We decided to call in my sister and brother-in-law to help with the first coat of mud.  They graciously agreed to give up their Saturday and help us.

From then on it was a disaster.  While they were very helpful in getting all the screws set into the walls, when it came to mixing the mud we had problems. We were planning to use a quick-setting mud, something we had (successfully) used in our old house when we refinished the basement, so we would be able to do at least two coats that day.  My sister was left to mix the mud, but she just couldn't seem to get the proportions of water and mix right.  It took her half an hour and two bags of mix to get something usable, and this is a mix with a 60-90 minute workable time limit.  In other words, we lost half the time we had to work with the joint compound because of how long it took to mix it. 

This caused us to frantically start applying the mud to the walls... yes, even me, who had not intended to help with this part at all.  I should have not helped... I couldn't remember how to apply it right, in fact I don't think i had done much of this before. I was usually on the sanding crew.  My sister and her husband didn't know how to do it at all.  I thought they did, so wasn't paying much attention... Even when the mud started setting up, my sister kept applying it, so it turned out like chunks of concrete slapped onto the wall in random jagged patterns.  Needless to say, it was impossible to sand, and we knew we would not be asking for any more help for the rest of the project, at least not free help. 

We spent all day Sunday attempting to salvage the walls, sanding and sanding.  In the meantime the contractor who wasn't able to come for a week called with his quote.  $850 to mud the room.  I asked how much it would have been if we had had him hang the sheets.  $250.  Much less than we paid our carpenters to help us with it.  We would have saved at least $500 if we had just hired the pros to begin with.

This was a lesson in poor planning on the general contractor's part... namely me.  We should have been calling for dry-wallers a week before we wanted them to come in.  Now, on Sunday afternoon we started calling other dry-wallers in the yellow pages in hopes that someone could rescue our walls and finish the job for us.

Monday afternoon one of the professionals we had called, who also happened to be one of the only names I had a recommendation for because he did work at our church, showed up at our door.  I warily ushered him into our future living room.  I told him how we had felt time pressure that made us start the job ourselves.  "It's going to take longer to do now than if you had just had us do it to begin with," he informed me.  He took careful stock of the situation, looked at the areas where new drywall met old and figured out a way he could make the texture more consistent in those spots, and told me it would be $800-$1000 to do the job.  He could start Tuesday afternoon.

I hired him.

So today, Tuesday, I came home from getting lunch with the kids to find the dry-wallers here and unloading their supplies and equipment into my house.  The boss had me sign his bid sheet, and informed me that the result would not be perfect, because of how much mud was on the walls in the wrong spots from what we did.  I said I understood. 

Now one of his crew members is in the living room.  He started by attacking our walls with a putty knife, scraping off our mis-applied joint compound.  He is walking around on drywall stilts (most impressive), and I think he's started applying actual mud to the walls.  I think he's re-taping some sections too.  I am not looking over his shoulder--my main goal is to keep the kids and dog out of his way--but I have a feeling it will look a lot better by the time he leaves than it did before he came.  They plan to finish in 3-4 days. 

We got ourselves into a situation where we had to swallow our pride and admit we could not fix our own mistake... but now that's over with I'm looking forward to the finished living room, and having more square footage to spread out into.   We have been crammed into what will be our dining room, with our microwave and TV overlapping each other, a couch shoved up against the side of our dining table, no power in the room, an extension cord running one workstation in our former office, soon to be our kitchen.  Most importantly, finishing that side of the house means we can start preparing our kitchen and dining room for the installation of our new cabinets.  The end is starting to come into sight!

This time, we'll be hiring someone to drywall the other half of the house... starting with hanging the sheets!

Posted by Caeli at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We decided to take out a load bearing wall.  Completely remove it. In order to arrive at the decision we spoke with a carpenter/handyman who had an architect friend who determined that it could be done.  The load the wall was carrying would be transferred to a steel beam.

So we proceeded to remove all the kitchen cabinets from the supporting wall, and look what we found:

Holes in the floor and top plates of the wall betrayed that the voids had been used as cold air returns (until we took off the drywall).  A metal duct led up to the ceiling and took a turn overhead toward the outside wall... a 2nd floor HVAC duct.  And a cylindrical chimney was easily identified as coming from our hot water heater.  All of these would have to be relocated before we could remove this wall.  And a related project included relocating wiring that had been hanging in the soffit. 

Much demolition took place... the kitchen was gutted, and a non-bearing wall nearby was removed.  Finally it was time to get serious.

The architect calculated that to bear the load across the almost 18' span we would be opening up, we needed an 8"X8" steel beam.  Our alternative would have been to use about 14-15" of wood beams laminated together, but that would have hung down that much lower, and we wanted more clearance, since the beam will be crossing our living room.  So steel was decided upon, located, and purchased by our handyman. 

Here the handyman and his friend are measuring to make sure the beam can be maneuvered out the patio door and back in again (it would enter through the front door).

The beam appeared in our front yard and spent the night out there in the rain before D-day. 

Before the load bearing wall could be removed, two temporary support walls had to be built out of 2X4 studs, running the full length of the expanse on either side of the load bearing wall.  For a time, our future living room was full of studs, (and I'm not talking about the handyman and his crew - hey, I'm an old married woman).

Then a few of the handyman's buddies and his dad showed up, and my husband pitched in to bring the steel beam into the house, intending to lift it into position... that is, on top of two jacks, one of which rested on the outside foundation wall, one resting on top of a similar jack in the basement.

The beam weighed in at 36 pounds per foot... about 620 pounds total.

As a passive observer, I thought it was touch-and-go for a while... the weight of the beam was more than you'd think.  They decided to lift it part of the way and rest it on an adjustable aluminum ladder that was folded into a table or scaffold formation... but the usually sturdy ladder was threatening to give under the weight.  So they got another short ladder under one end of it, with boards to make up the gap between it and the current height of the beam. 

That's when I was given the go-ahead to call in reinforcements.  My dad owns a business near where we live, and he dashed over with two of his salesmen, who managed to provide just enough umpf to get the beam up onto the two support jacks, one end at a time.

The guys went to buy some bolts to attach the beam to the jacks, and my husband took down the temporary stud walls. In the end, we had a big room. 

Currently drywalling is in progress, with our contractors helping my husband with some of the hanging of sheets, and us looking for yet another contractor to take care of mudding the seams.  Last house, we did all our own mudding and sanding, though we hired a guy to paint after that.  We were sick of touching every inch of those walls.  This time my pregnancy is affecting me more physically (maybe I really am getting old) which doesn't allow me to help as much as I did before, so we need to hire some help to keep things progressing along. 

Next thing will be leveling out and patching the subfloor, then hubby will put down the laminate floors. 

Posted by Caeli at 04:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The price ranges given for your average remodeling project can be staggering.  For instance, an average kitchen remodel is $50,000.  Well, our kitchen remodel has turned into a first-floor remodel, with repercussions throughout the rest of the house too, and there's no way we can dedicate $50K to the kitchen alone.  My husband and I had to figure out ways to do some of the project ourselves, to trim the budget down to something more manageable.

Probably the biggest way we have done this is by becoming our own "general contractor" on the project.  We really didn't give this choice a whole lot of thought.  After having renovated our 1930s Cape Cod style home largely by ourselves, we weren't inclined to hire a remodeling company to take over this project for us.  I don't think it ever really occurred to us... but as I am expecting a baby this year and haven't been able to do a lot of hands-on work to help my husband with the remodeling, I have jokingly started calling myself the "general contractor."  In a way, though, it's no joke.

There are plenty of companies around who will take on your entire remodeling project and handle all the details, but that costs money.  If you go this route, call around for prices.  I'm sure there's a lot of variety.  These companies may range from a jack-of-all-trades, where the remodelers do all the electrical, plumbing, drywall etc. themselves, to more of a general contractor role, where they might do some of the work themselves but hire out the specialty jobs like electrical and plumbing to subcontractors.

In our Cape Cod home, I was able to help more, and my family helped us out a good deal too, and the nature of our remodeling efforts didn't require us to hire out a lot of work to contractors.  We are taking a different approach this time.  My family is still helping us out, particularly with the plumbing (that's what they do), but we are on a time constraint with the baby coming, and my husband can only humanly do so much himself.

So in my role as General Contractor, I have been calling most of the workers in, arranging the schedule, and trying to make sure that things progress in a timely manner and are done in the right order. 

Here is a key to our success: hiring a trustworthy, skilled and well-connected handyman.  A handyman will usually come at a better price than a company that specializes in remodeling, or hiring a general contractor.  Here's what we've had our handyman working on:

1) Removing windows and putting windows in new locations, then patching up the exterior walls.

2) Pulling down a drywall ceiling

3) Putting in a new patio door, including removing a built-in bench from our deck that would have blocked the walkway for the new door

4) Hauling multiple loads of demolition materials (mostly demoed by my husband) to the dump

5) The big job yet to be done, removing a load-bearing wall and replacing it with a 9" steel I-beam.

On that last point, it's been nice that our handyman has connections... he has a friend who is an architect who was able to calculate the load our wall is holding up and figure out what will work as a beam to replace it.  The handyman is currently in the process of tracking down the best price for the I-beam (it will not be cheap, but if we had gone with a wood laminate beam, it would have extended down 16" or so, and been more of an eye-sore in our new, big living room).  My job is to follow up with him to make sure he's moving forward on getting the beam and putting us on his schedule, because until that is done, my husband won't be able to drywall. 

The load-bearing wall, which also happened to be full of every utility in the house, has set the pace for our interior work and is a good example of how when you're your own general contractor, you have to understand the scope of the project and what needs to happen when.  First and foremost was the duct work going through the wall to the 2nd floor.  We had to find a way to relocate two cold air returns and supply.  That changed our floor plan a bit, because we needed an interior wall to put the returns into.  It worked out fine, but this is exactly why we brought the HVAC people in first. 

Next is the electrical.  There used to be a soffit on that wall, and now there are wires hanging outside of the ceiling cavity that need to be put up into it.  So we had to very carefully plan our electrical scheme and demolish the walls and ceilings that needed to be removed so our electrician can come in to put our new wiring scheme in place and move any wires that need to be moved.  We have a very specific set of instructions for him, and in both the case of the HVAC and electrician, we have tried to make their job as easy as possible.  (After all they charge by the hour.)

The last obstacle in that wall is the chimney for the water heater.  The easiest solution to this was to put in a direct-vent water heater, so it could go directly outside from the utility room below instead of having to find or create a cavity for the chimney all the way up to the roof.  Once my dad takes care of that, we're ready for that I-beam to come take the place of the load-bearing wall.

So from this example you can see how we're functioning as our own General Contractor.  It's mainly a matter of figuring out the scope of the project, hiring consultants or contractors as needed, and keeping the gears turning so the project moves forward.  And of course, supervising our contractors. 

If you like reading up on the nitty gritty details of remodeling and getting a basic knowledge of how the systems of your house work, and doing some internet research to learn the best ways to, say, insulate your house, or what is needed for an effective drain system (venting et al), or how far a track lighting fixture should be mounted from a wall vs. from bookshelves, etc., then you can probably be your own general contractor, as long as you have the time to stay on top of all the details.  Undoubtedly that is the biggest way we are saving on this project, but we didn't even realize it because we wouldn't do it any other way.

Posted by Caeli at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Several years ago my grandparents sold the extra lot adjacent to the one their house is built on, to a local builder.  My grandpa (a carpenter) observed how the house was constructed and tsked and shook his head.  "You can break into that house with a knife," he said, referring to the Styrofoam sheathing covered by vinyl siding. 

I agreed with him, that was no good way to build a house.

So you think that in buying a home built around that same era, I would have considered checking the construction of the walls.  Yet it wasn't until we opened up the drywall and pulled off the vinyl siding of this house as we are remodeling the first floor, that we discovered our house's exterior is sheathed in foam board, reinforced only by some diagonal metal strapping at either end.

I guess this was a common enough construction method, though I've noticed that all the new construction being done around here includes plywood or particle board sheathing with Tyvec house wrap or similar around it.  I did a little research and found an article that verified my suspicions that plywood provides better structural integrity to a home than Styrofoam insulation panels.  This is important, because our house shakes and shudders when a train goes by... and the nearest train tracks are over 1/4 mile away.

I also came across mentions of Styrofoam insulation when researching carpenter ants (another plague we've suffered) and it turns out insects of many varieties love tunneling into the foam insulation and making a home between it and the walls of your house.

Add to this that our handymen found a recently deceased mouse above the drywall ceiling we had them take down in the basement room underneath the location of the new kitchen.  We've been dealing with mice in the basement since we moved here, and in spite of a few patches in the foundation and packets of poison bait above the suspended ceiling in the main part of the basement, this was evidence that the mice are still here. 

So I called a wildlife control guy, who came to do a $45 mouse proofing inspection.  The first thing he asked me is, "Is your house sheathed in that pink foam board, or is there plywood under that?" 

I told him it was just the foam board.  "That's bad isn't it,"  I asked.

"It can be," he confirmed.  He said if it was done right it was okay, but he'd let me know.

In the end, besides a multitude of other holes and vents and such that needed mouse proofing, he said that the foam board was installed correctly with some type of plate at the bottom of the walls to keep animals from coming through, however if the mice went under this they could easily chew through the foam in the basement and up into the walls of the house.  He found holes in the foam around the basement windows.   He suggested that we consider replacing the foam board sheathing with plywood in the areas we had exposed for remodeling, and when we re-side the rest of the house in the future, to replace the rest of the sheathing with plywood (and house wrap) as well.

So there you have my three good reasons to side a house in plywood rather than foam board:

1) Better structural integrity

2) Less inviting to insects

3) Less easily penetrated by mice

Posted by Caeli at 07:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)