Flop Sweat Inducing Weekend Recap

Imma put this right here.

If your weekend didn't end with your only bathroom looking like that, consider it a good one.  

Happy Monday all!  I hope your weekend was much less destructive than ours was.  That right there is the end result of renos from 2005 forward that involved attaching something to the wall whether it was beadboard or shiplap.  I remember watching my friend's ex (a supposed general contractor) slop a bunch of construction adhesive on the back of the beadboard he was putting in, in addition to 734 brad nails and thought that was the way just because he made money at it.  What I've learned since is 93.7% of general contractors are not good at their jobs, and you can literally do a comparable job on most things.  Will it come with stress and anxiety and tears?  Hell yes.  Will it feel satisfying to see something you did that looks good?  Eventually.  Will you be pissed if you pay someone who makes money as a contractor and you find out later how utterly crappy they are when you have to then live with or correct their mistakes?  Abso-friggin-lutely.

Let's rewind for a moment.

So just when we had yanked the carpet off of the stairs last weekend and thought it was time to go order new carpet, the Mr asks a day or two later if that's a good idea because if we're refreshing the bathroom, we'd ruin the new carpet.  That made sense so we started thinking about how to refresh the bathroom as cost effective as possible.  We knew there was an utter show de la shite waiting for us under the shiplap which was on top of beadboard before getting to the original drywall from almost 20 years of previous "refreshes."  We remembered how much construction glue my friend's ex used when he put it on as he giggled "I hope you like this style for a long time."   We did and instead of tearing it out when we did the shiplap project in 2017, we painted and slapped the luan strips over the top and said any other improvements were future us' problem.

Welcome to the future.

Mmm hmm.

I am ready to grab a leather glove, find that asshole and slap him across the face with it, old timey style.

source

The beadboard did just as expected and ripped off a lot of the drywall down to the paper.  Well, you can't just slap some hot mud on top of that.  You have to seal it which can be done a few different ways.  Because this was in the bathroom, glue and/or Gardz sealer seemed to be the top choices.  We had a buttload of wood glue left from the upstairs hardwood install so I used that on one wall after sanding everything back.  It took a lot of it and honestly I didn't know if we'd have enough glue to do the other walls.  I ordered the Gardz since you can't just get it at the local conglomerate. 

In between getting that off and the vanity moved out for stripping and painting, I got an email from our kitchen people saying they carry this Onyx bathroom system and they're giving $500 off.  Well, we all know that won't amount to much in the scheme of things but I talked to the Mr since we'd been kicking around converting to a shower only.  I sent pics of what we'd want, the dude came out same day and we were barf-ily awaiting the number.  With a minimum of two toe scrapes on the tub track under our belts, we knew those were only going to increase with age and we have glass doors to crash into.  Great... how did we get to this friggin age where we have to be thinking of that crap??  We knew now was our only opportunity to do it.   We also knew 12k was our absolute max.  The next day he came back at just under $13k.  There was a dumpster charge in there for $540 which nulls that $500 off they were so graciously going to give you.  Dude, this isn't our first rodeo, they didn't need a dumpster last time they pulled out a surround.  I wrote back and told him for a project that wasn't on our radar the day before the absolute most we could pay was $11k.  He comes back with they could knock the dumpster off and have a runner take the trash.  Then he said instead of the barn doors we could do bypass doors and save $950.  Well, we didn't want barn doors in the first place because I think those are going to date out quickly.  Then we discussed the tile we had listed and didn't need it for $350.  By the time all of that came off, we were down to the $11k I really wanted.  So he's coming out tomorrow for final measurements.

That left us with we are now going to be in limbo for at least a month with this atrocity of a bathroom.  The footprint will change slightly so we can't do the floors, paneling, wallpaper, ceiling repair/painting, none of it.  When you're living with crumbling drywall and no sink, it takes a mental toll night one when you're brushing your teeth over the tub.  I got the newel post scraped and the wood embellishments stained but we were in a state of functional freeze for a majority of Saturday.  Friday, we tore out the 30 year old useless insulation on the back wall of the basement and replaced it with Rockwool R30 insulation.  

Once we got moving Saturday, the Mr cut out chunks of drywall so we could stuff insulation into our non insulated walls on the master bedroom side.  We were able to get a lot in there and he reattached the drywall pieces but it falls on me to patch.  Did I mention I SUCK at patching??  No matter how many YouTube videos I watch, I cannot seem to get the hang of feathering, not having an obvious lump in the spot, etc.  Most of it will be covered by paneling but the spot where we have to put in a junction box and will be wallpapered will be visible if there is any kind of jank with the wall.  Wanna see what I have to patch perfectly smooth??

Actually, that's what it looked like from the moment we moved in here and have never been able to have a small based vanity light there and it doesn't even look like that now anyway.  The Mr cut that whole piece out so we could stuff the insulation in (too lazy to go up and take a pic).  To say I was in a state of panic/ depression/ tears is an understatement.  We called it a night and I didn't get to sleep until after 3am.

Sunday came and I put off getting up as long as I could since I was running on 4 hours.  I made brunch, we tried to figure out the newel post, trim, the medicine cabinet shelves are obviously going to need to be made because there are no replacements that fit the upcycled one we're reusing and I need to get skim coating.  He got to work on his wood stuff in the garage and I started my stuff.

(DON'T DO IT, PAST ME!!!  For the love of God, STOP!)

Welp, you figure if a hardened coat of Gardz (which I don't feel did much better than the glue I used) could seal it, then the primer could seal the deal further, yes?  

No.

No it didn't.

It made the paper ripple, I had to go back and redo everything I'd done the previous days on certain parts and while waiting for it to dry, the newel post shit the bed and the embellishments with trim didn't look like they were going to work without looking like crap.  I sat and bawled while the Mr started working on the medicine cabinet door.  I mixed up some 45 minute mud, watched more videos then got to sloppin'.  A few minutes later, I notice what appear to be ripples under THAT coat.  Instead of recoating everything, we decided it'd be best to let it sit overnight to see how much moisture we could get out of the wall and check it in the morning.   I was mentally done.  My jaw is locked.  The Mr was exhausted and when he went to glue the clamp onto the medicine cabinet door, the glue exploded everywhere and onto a pair of good shorts since he'd changed for the night.  Yep,,,Longhorn steak for dinner it is.  It got it without the butter finishing sauce and the butter salt crust on the potato to justify not cooking with a searing migraine.  

Now the house is even MORE torn apart than when the measuring dude came out the other day and at this point we'd need to sign the contract on someone's back because there's nowhere to sit.  I pray the drywall has somehow righted itself overnight.  I know I should rip out the drywall and start over but I'm not going to.  This bottom portion of the wall is going to be covered by paneling and we'd better like it because I'm not going through this crap again with drywall 'repair.'  And the light?  Yeah, we're going to pay them to do the drywall repair on that part.  The Mr is going to install the junction box and cut out some drywall so all they have to do is mud over it and make it look good so we can put wallpaper over a non jankified looking wall that would show every lump, bump or imperfection.  I can't be responsible for that.

This afternoon I go in to see if the blood clot is gone and if they'll do the back of the leg.  I really cannot afford to get this pushed out any longer so it'd better fall in line.  I'll also have to just take baby aspirin after this procedure to keep any issue like that at bay since it's happened twice.  

How was your weekend?

====================
Get posts sent straight to your inbox on Follow It. Some posts may contain affiliate links that help keep this blog running at no cost to you.  See the Disclaimer page for more info. All posts copyright Success Along the Weigh. All rights reserved.