1/26/25

  Rick arrived on Thursday, and I arrived on Friday. He removed and framed part of the wall between the kitchen and living room and worked all weekend on wiring the kitchen and laundry room and running a water line to the refrigerator area. We ran 3 new electric lines to the breaker box and ran wire for plugs in the kitchen and west wall of the living room, the dishwasher, garbage disposal, undercabinet lighting on both sides of the kitchen, and 4-way lights in kitchen. We also vacuumed and cleaned out some gross areas in the kitchen walls and baseplates, removed old water and gas pipes, and foamed many holes in the baseplates and other areas. 

We ran out of wire and couldn't complete the kitchen wiring but got close. Next weekend, we'll complete the wiring and start putting up sheetrock in the kitchen, west living room wall, and east utility room wall. 

Cutting out old gas and water pipes

A woodpecker looking for bugs in the ground. There were 3 male cardinals in the backyard most of the weekend, but I didn't get a photo.

Friday night sunset

1/19/25

 We were both sick last weekend so had to miss the planned trip. Rick returned on Thursday, and I arrived on Friday. It's been quite cold for the past couple of weeks, and an even stronger front arrived Friday night. Rick worked on more taping, bedding, and mudding on Thursday and Friday, and we shifted to demolition of the kitchen on Friday afternoon after I arrived. 

It went fairly well, and we were able to get the entire kitchen (minus the window area) cleared out. We had a change of plans and went ahead and took out the pantry too. We also took out the door trim into the laundry room and most of the paneling and sheetrock on the east wall of the laundry room in preparation for putting up sheetrock within that doorway area and to allow for easier access to the walls for some re-wiring. Rick started preparing for rewiring in the kitchen and started measuring everything before drawing up plans for the new cabinets. He'll start building those soon in his shop at home as he has time.

We'll be working on electrical for the kitchen and laundry room, cutting out the pass-through between the kitchen and living room, sheet-rocking the kitchen/west living room/east laundry room walls, and doing more mud work over the next few weeks. That'll be the last of the sheet rock, and a lot of it in the kitchen will be behind cabinets and won't need all of the finishing work.

Before demolition

This was a close call! It all came down unexpectedly in one large piece. 

We decided to go ahead a take out the pantry. It was a hot water heater closet at one point and had a damaged ceiling barely being held up by the walls.

Ceiling hole

Ceiling repaired and pantry removed

Future pass-through between kitchen and living room

Planning the electrical

Just prior to removing paneling and sheetrock on the east wall of the laundry room

Kitchen demo finished and cleaned up

1/5/25

 Rick arrived on Friday morning, and I arrived Friday afternoon. He worked on rewiring electrical plugs on the east wall and removing/re-wiring the light in the master bedroom, and removing the light in the hallway. Saturday, he re-secured some pre-existing loose drywall on the east wall, removed the baseboard, repaired holes, and mudded over sheetrock fixes in the master bedroom, secured loose drywall on the hallway ceiling and mudded over fixes. Sunday, he repaired cracks, re-secured drywall, and mudded over fixes on the master bedroom ceiling and hallway, and taped and bedded most of the new sheetrock in the hallway. We returned home early on Sunday to attend a friend's birthday party. I worked on sanding the skim coat and finding areas that need touching up prior to putting on the drywall paint.

We'll continue the drywall process next week. There are more cracks to repair in the living room ceiling, a little more taping and bedding in the hallway, and more sanding and mudding. 

Winter finally arrived at about 3:00 this morning. It's going to be cold for at least a couple of weeks. Prior to the front's arrival, there were still green leaves on the mesquites, some green grass (the summer variety), and Mother's geraniums were still blooming.

Beautiful sunset on Saturday night