Build the Wall Weekend Recap

Howdy do, all?  I hope you had a lovely weekend full of fun!  I told the Mr Sunday evening that I felt like a hitchhiker who finally got picked up, realized once the car hit 55mph that the "good samaritan" was a killer and rolled out of the car at top speed.

Friday night we did a good bulk of our grocery shopping.  In between runs, I asked the Mr if he wanted to rent a truck from Home Depot to get the drywall and we just squeaked in under the deadline.  We told them we wouldn't even need it for 30 minutes but I think he thought he was joking.  While he was renting that, I took a big cart to the drywall area.  I tried to get it myself but they pack those bastards two slabs at a time!  48 lbs per sheet and unwieldy do not mesh well.  So the Mr rounded the corner and I flagged him like Goldblum running from a T Rex

Why do they not have wheel locks on those carts?? 

We managed to get them loaded on, bought, then loaded into the truck, unloaded into the garage and returned the truck...in 19 minutes. 

Of course, we forgot shims so we had to go back but still. 

I don't know what it was but the workouts last week did my legs in BIG TIME.  Friday night I had the Mr massage my calves but everything was too deep-rooted to get.  I woke up the next morning around 5:45am and my legs felt like a mess.  I grabbed my shiatsu massager and moved it incrementally starting on my hamstrings to the ankles and up the other leg for an HOUR.  I still had to use The Stick to loosen a few stubborn knots.  I knew we had a lot of walking ahead of us and 4 hours on the asphalt in the sun was not my friend.  But at least we got a corn dog and elephant ear for our trouble.  We got some planks we needed for the basement then got back to the house collapsed for an almost 3-hour nap!  I woke up and my legs were seized up.  I waited for a break when I could swing the legs off of the couch and used the Pure Wave to jackhammer and loosen things a bit so I could even stand.  Yeesh.  I had grand plans of getting downstairs and getting started on the drywall the second half of the day but that wasn't gonna happen to the extent I thought it would.

We finally went down and got measurements of the first piece to line up to the middle of the stud like I researched.  Then, of course, realized that the friggin' junction box was going to be in a potentially tricky spot.  I was super nervous about cutting the outline despite measuring and re-measuring how far up to come, how far in to go and the dimensions of the box.  I got it almost completely perfect but then the Mr remembered we can't have the drywall touching the floor due to potential mold.  We consulted the Google Handyman and verified this and saw that most will just put scrap pieces of drywall underneath as the guide for screwing it in.  We did that and cut a little bit down into the junction cut out and will use that piece to fill in the gap that would be on top now.  I am so happy with the results because after having replaced all of the faceplates on the light switches and outlets in this house, I can say I did a MUCH better job than the "professionals!"

Once we got everything to our liking, we decided it was a good stopping place because it was too late to start pounding like maniacs.  (That's what she said.)  We then pondered how we were going to make rip cuts on these planks because they have a trick to them.  The thought of using a table saw terrifies me and he didn't grow up with a handyman dad so we're both not super comfortable with that stuff.  I grew up around it but dad bolted before I was old enough to be comfortable using power tools. After checking out the tools in our future, we wound down by playing some old school Crash Bandicoot.

Sunday was a new day and we both felt pretty broken.  We had to wake up a bit so got sucked into two episodes of Say Yes to the Dress.  I couldn't help but feel sad because in all of the years I've watched this show, I never heard them talk about "cancellation dresses" and they brought it up in both episodes.  Under any other circumstances, I wouldn't have likely noticed but now I know what someone feels like having to cancel their dream wedding.  Friday I got the invite for my friend's bridal shower that came with a note telling people about the cancellation.  It was honestly the saddest invite I've ever received and I burst into tears when I opened it. 

We turned it off before another episode started and got downstairs.  We screwed in the piece we cut the night before and were happy to have our starting piece in place.

Then it was time to work on the other piece and we had a light switch junction box to contend with.  We measured just as careful as the night before and got pretty close.  There was a gap on the bottom of the board because as you will find when you do something like a wall, your house ain't square, yo.  I feel like I became the planing queen, shearing off edges and ends so drywall dust went EVERYWHERE.  It was literally and figuratively irritating.  We got that done so the bottom part was ready to go.

We then moved on to what should've been the easy ones with no junction boxes to worry about.  It wasn't, of course.  We worked together to get everything where it needed to go.

It was nice to get the next section up.  The Mr went out to cut the last piece while I put together a little time capsule to put inside the wall.  Just some prices of stuff, whose popular and asking them why they're tearing our wall down! 

When we finally got the last piece all cut and shaved down, we finally had a wall!

We had some smaller sections to work on over the door, to the right of it and to cap off the end on the left.  When we were done, there was no time to relax, we still had one more grocery store to go.  It was so painful for both of us.  When we got back, I got to making dinner and he cut my produce for the week.  Then I finished up this post while he's passed out on the couch.  It's so good to have this part done but each part we have to do has its own cringe-worthy challenges for us novices.  But we're getting there!  It's nice to know when presented with challenges that my paternal genes kick in on the engineering front.  I'm proud of us for getting it done up to this point.  Now on to the next part which is mudding and taping and sanding.

Oy.

How was your weekend?

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