12/30/24

 We didn't arrive until Friday due to family Christmas in Lubbock on Thursday night. Rick continued mudding and was able to apply the "skim coat" to the bedrooms, bathrooms, and living room. However, there are still crack and other repairs to be done on the ceilings in the master bedroom, second bedroom, and living room, so it's not quite ready for the next step yet. We put up the sheetrock in the hallway but haven't started taping and bedding it yet--it's a different type of mud per Rick. The walls and ceiling will get a coat of dry wall primer before the texture and then paint. And, the kitchen still needs to be gutted.... 

Keila, Justin, and Hadleigh stopped by on their way back to DFW area, saw the house, and joined us for lunch at Ranchland with Mother. I returned home on Sunday, and Rick came back on Monday. He was supposed to get photos of the living room but forgot.

12/22/24

 Rick was able to go on Wednesday, and I arrived Friday afternoon. The main focus was the time-consuming mudding and taping & bedding in the living room, bathrooms, and bedrooms. I removed the remaining paneling, sheetrock, old wall paper, and door trim in the hallway, swept and cleaned up dried mud, and pulled up carpet tacks and staples along the baseboards.

Rick was able to complete the 2nd round of mudding everywhere on Saturday. We stopped early to attend family Christmas festivities, and we worked on re-wiring the hallway and putting up sheetrock in the hallway on Sunday. 

Second coat of mud around the living room window

Removing paneling and sheetrock from the east wall of the hallway

 

Planning the new two-way light switch and the electrical plug move in the hallway

Running wires

The old wiring to the electrical plug was pretty sketchy

New wires and electrical plug

The other new two-way light switch on the north wall of the hallway

12/15/24

 We arrived at separate times on Friday. Some people were on vacation at work, and I stayed and worked part of the day to help out. Rick arrived before lunch. He worked on taping, bedding, and mudding all weekend. I have zero skills with that and just ran errands and found stuff for Rick when he needed it most of the weekend. 

On Saturday, I made a trip to the hardware store in Seymour for more mud. We met Kemp/Becky/Kamryn/Mother at Ranchland for lunch and (not Rick) made a trip to the cemetery to check out Daddy's new headstone and put flowers on his, Ronald's, and Lloyd's graves. We also checked out a lot of the old graves and located the founder of Benjamin's grave. Rick, Mother and I also attended a Christmas party on Saturday night.

On Sunday, I swept and cleaned up dried mud/paper and swept all of the rooms. We decided to go ahead and pull all of the paneling and sheetrock in the hallway and put up new sheetrock, so I completed the removal on the north and west walls and now just lack the east wall. Rick put up corner beads in the bedroom windows and walls and mudded those in the 2nd bedroom. 

We have lots more mudding to do throughout the house so will continue next weekend.

Benjamin is named after this guy's son who was killed by lightning strike (founded in 1884)

Sanding a little on the edges to do taping & bedding in living room (ceiling to walls)

Glueing and stapling down the corner beads in the 2nd bedroom

North wall of hallway prior to removal of old sheetrock (paneling was removed last month)

North hallway wall after removal and cleanup

West hallway wall with paneling and sheetrock

West hallway wall after removal and cleanup

Corner bead on windows and wall corner (right) in master bedroom

Windows and wall corner mudded in

Windows mudded in--2nd bedroom

12/8/24

 We were back at it this weekend after a 3 weekend break. We did an 11 day cruise out of Galveston 11/18-11/29 which visited Cozumel, Curacao, Aruba, and Grand Cayman, and the timing of it and travel to & from Galveston took up three weekends. It was a nice break, though.

Everything was as we left it except the yard is very green due to the recent rains and lack of cold temperatures, and the city was finally able to find and fix the water pressure issue a few weeks ago. They had been working on it for a while. 

Due to a Christmas party on Thursday night, Rick didn't leave until Friday morning, and I arrived Friday afternoon. We worked on completing sheetrock on the south wall of the living room, completing sheetrock on the sides and tops of new windows (there will be a wooden window seat on the bottoms of the windows), adding a small strip of sheetrock (and wafer board in some areas) to the bedrooms, closets, and living room--all walls are 8'3" high rather than 8' high which makes everything really fun and challenging. I also tore the sheetrock off of the west wall of the living room, and Rick worked on wiring several rooms for lights. Rick added some protective equipment to the outside lines of the north mini-splits (the mini-splits work well keeping the house nice and warm!). We also cleaned up and moved out pieces of wood, sheetrock, etc. in preparation for taping and bedding. Some were saved and stored in the carport storage rooms, and most were placed in the growing trash pile. Rick also made another trip into the cellar--the water had dried up and no snakes were found! I returned home Sunday night, and Rick stayed one more day and began taping and bedding. 

The next few weekends will focus on getting lighting into the bedrooms, taping/bedding/texturizing walls in the bedrooms/bathrooms/living room, removing the kitchen cabinets, cutting a hole into the wall between the kitchen and living room, and possibly installing the new window in the utility room (as weather allows).

Gracie checks out her future home