Days 52-54 - 11/26 through 11/28

These few days are kind of a blur and we don't have a lot of pictures.  The painting is near complete.  Here's a shot of the master bedroom.  Steph has been working feverishly on the painting (thanks again to Ryan and Lisa for showing up AGAIN to continue to help us out).  Andy has continued to do miscellaneous work (sanding sheetrock fixing random devices, cleanup) along with more tile work.

The master bath floor was laid and is ready to be grouted.

The tub surround still hasn't been backed because there is no tub drain.  Until we're certain that they can get a drain in there with the surround placed I'm going to leave it open.

The small bathroom floor is grouted and the bullnose is placed (neither pictured) and the wall is about 1/3 of the way complete.  This is a pinwheel pattern using 4" and 12" tile and it's really coming along nicely.

Day 51 - 11/25

Alex began painting her room!

With a pink ceiling and a purple walls this is definitely a little girl's room.

The 2nd bedroom is very green!

The master closet is now tile cutting central.  The great thing about this saw is that the price dropped by $60 for black Friday so we were able to take advantage of the Home Depot's price protection and save some dough!

The small bathroom floor is completely laid.

The full tiles were laid in the master bath to provide points of reference for the imposing number of cuts that will be necessary to set the tiles at 45 degrees.

Day 50 - 11/24

This seems like a slow day. 
The north side of the house is completely sided.

The backer was placed in the small bathroom.

And the seemingly never-ending job of painting continues.  The family room is well under way.

Day 49 - 11/23

Most of the siding was placed on the north side of the house.

The front door was placed as well.  With a couple of problems...

If you look closely you may see that the doorframe is wider at the top than the bottom.  In addition to that issue, the door is not plumb with the frame.  We've filed a complaint with the manufacturer, but don't know when and if a new door will arrive.

Of course the painting continues.  Here is the ceiling in the 2nd bedroom upstairs.

And the bathrooms each received a final coat of paint.  Now the backer can be placed and the tiling can start.  This is a shot of the master bath.  The closet to the right will be a bathroom linen and storage closet.

Day 47/48 - 11/21 through 11/22

Continued priming.  Thanks to Ryan and Lisa for the enormous amount of free labor that they've provided.  Your reward is an appearance in the blog!

And we were able to start work on the ceilings as well!

Including the pink ceiling that Alex has been waiting to see!

Day 46 - 11/20

The siding began today!  The windows on the main floor were all wrapped and prepped for the coming siding.

The porch rim was put in place.  The porch will ride on top of this rim.  The porch will be one step up and the doorway will be the 2nd step.  A little different than we had planned (a recessed step up to the porch) due to building codes.  If the door ever swings up, there needs to be a place for snow to build up that will still allow the door to swing.

After a little bit of sheetrock patching...

We started to get the primer on the walls.  That's Steph's dad in the foreground.  He's been a huge help throughout this project.  Thanks to him for the lights and the extra painting implements.

Day 45 - 11/19

Today most of the ceilings were finished.  Apparently this is called an "orangepeel knockdown."  Apparently it's what all the higher end homes have...  So there you have it.  We had no idea what this was coming in, we're actually quite pleased with the look.  Check out the closeup in the 2nd photo.

Day 44 - 11/18

The only additional mudding done today was for the new basement closet.

The real excitement was that the insulation was blown into the attic and the skylights were cut into the bathroom ceilings!  These will give us a great chance to bring some additional natural light into the only rooms where we didn't want to put large windows.

Day 43 - 11/17

Yesterday the taping, today the mudding.  The corner bead was tacked up and the "heavy coat" of mud was placed.

Day 42 - 11/16

The taping begins!  With all of the sheetrock in place, the seams were taped and some of the screw heads were mudded.

Every tool these guys have is caked with gypsum mud.  Check out the bench.

Bonus Post! Alex, gettin' 'er done

Day 40/41 - 11/14 through 11/15

Andy did a lot of work over the weekend repairing and re-inforcing the subfloor.  The first step was to replace some of the old planks.

If you're wondering why they needed to be replaced, check out these shots.

At one point, there were carpenter ants in this house.  And they ate some of the planking.  With the rotten boards out and new ones laid on saturday, Sunday was the day for laying some plywood subfloor on top of the planks.

This is 1/4 inch plywood.  It will be covered with 1/4 inch tile board, and then the tile can be placed on top of that.  The thin ply and tilebacker will mean that the tile won't rise too far above 3/4 floorboards.