Saturday, June 25, 2011

Rainbow Scenery

It's a long weekend here in Quebec.  The first statutory holiday of summer - Saint-Jean-Baptiste - is observed on June 24.  Our next statutory holiday is next Friday when we observe Canada Day on July 1.  A lot of people take the week between the two holidays off, because if you trade-in 4 vacation days, you can pull off 10 consecutive days off.  That's a good deal no matter how you look at it.

What's unfortunate is that it's been raining off-and-on for the past 2 days, and is supposed to continue that way for the next week or so.  We've known the long-term forecast to lie, though, so there's always hope.  It seems the forecast at Environment Canada is updated radically from one hour to the next.  The radar is the only thing that doesn't lie, and we're getting good at figuring out just how much time we have until the next downpour.

Our corn, planted in the field behind the barn, likes the rain, but corn also likes hot days.  It's 21C today, which can hardly be considered hot.  But it's growing, and I guess that's the main thing.

Again, progress outside is touch-and-go.  More projects, more lawn mowing, more clean-up.  It all depends on the weather.

What doesn't depend on the weather is drywall.  Eric's got another room, his office this time, drywalled, spackled and primed.  Way to go, bay-bee:

I know that photo doesn't give you much reference.  Believe me though, that it used to look like this:

...and like this:


...and like this:

...and like this:
...and like this:
...and if one more, ONE MORE, person asks why we didn't sub the drywall out, I swear on Cooper's head that I will have a screaming fit that will send me to the loony bin for a protracted stay.

Taping and mudding and sanding, (and mudding and sanding, and mudding and sanding) drywall is...how can I put this delicately? It is the least of our worries, when you consider what we've accomplished based on the above.

It's like going to a restaurant, ordering dessert, and when it's put in front of you, you give it to the dude at the next table.

It's dessert!

6 comments:

Ron said...

You guys have done an amazing amount of work on your place. It looks great. It sure is challenging to do repair work.

I wanted to bite granny's head off when she visited the first time, after we had built our house while living in a dirt-floored pole barn for 6 months. Her first comment was to point out that I didn't have the trim on the front door yet. :)

Shim Farm said...

Hi Ron, thanks for stopping by!

I think Granny's comment strikes a universal chord among builders/renovators. It's invariable that visitors hone in on the one detail that remains undone. After trading in a shower-curtain for a real wooden bathroom door complete with hinges and a door-handle, visitors only noticed the 18" baseboard molding missing on one side. It seems it's human nature. I've learned to stop rolling my eyeballs and slapping my forehead at comments like that!

Nature abhors a vacuum, and missing trim, it seems!

Now if people would just stop asking why we don't just pay someone to do our dirty-work, I'd be eternally grateful! That's a whole different battle, though!

LOL...

Robin said...

Oh that looks so lovely. I think I'm in love with your drywall. What an amazing amount of progress you made. How long do you think it took you to get from step A to step B?

Lee hates those questions too. It drives him up the wall.

Shim Farm said...

I think it's been 2.5 years. We started the knotty pine purge in January of 2009, and finished most of the structural work in May of that year, in time for our energy audit. All of the structural work and re-insulating is done upstairs now. Eric decided to get serious about the drywall in his office about 2 months ago. He did all the work himself, except a few days I got home from work and was asked to help bring up a few sheets of drywall and help hold them in place while he drove the screws in. There is one thing worse than dry-walling a ceiling, and it's dry-walling walls that are angled. Those bloody pieces of drywall were so hard to hold in place. I kinked my neck while trying to hold them in place while Eric swore at the drill. Oh precious times!

What do you two have left to do upstairs with your renovations? You're at the drywall stage, aren't you?

Robin said...

We have wiring, insulation, and some plumbing vents before we can start on drywall. We suddenly realized a few days ago that the summer clock is ticking down and winter will be here soon. We had better get on the ball. :)

Shim Farm said...

Isn't it scary how time flies? We mark time by pre-gyproc and post-gyproc, pre-destruction and post-destruction. It's like there's a black hole time disappears into when tools are involved.

Why is that?

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