With the insulation in and inspected, it was time to start enclosing our space a little. It’s funny, we’d lived for so long with an open ceilings looking up into the attic, that I’d almost forgotten it’s completely not normal, most houses actually have…you know…ceilings! Well, it was our turn to be normal ceiling-having people, too! First world, here we come!
The ceilings in most of the house would be layered with OSB above the drywall. This way people walking in the attic (read: Errek) won’t accidentally step through the drywall ceiling. As hilarious as it would be to take photos of Errek’s feet dangling through a hole in the drywall, we’re kind of ready to not have that happen ever.
We started with the guest bathroom — OSB + drywall + lighting = awesome town!
For the rest of the house, we finally figured out that there’s a super bad ass tool that can totally make our lives less awful! It’s called a panel lifter, and the closer we get to 40, the more we love things like panel lifters. For some reason, our backs still hurt each day after working on this stuff, but most likely they hurt a lot less than they would have had we not used this glorious contraption to lift the ceiling OSB and drywall into place.
One major reason why the panel lifter was a god-send was because of this crazy special kind of drywall which is more sound resistant than normal drywall. Apparently it’s ten times more sound resistant than a normal sheet of drywall, and it weighs a ton. Not literally a “ton” but it weighs a bunch.
Maybe you’re wondering why we need ten times the sound insulation. Well, it’s because our neighbor’s son likes to demo his tooth-rattling car stereo all the time. His car stereo sounds about like this in our house.
Oh oh oh! Guess what! Now that the drywall was on the ceiling, we could hang our lights. And I’ve been collecting some cool ass lights for a while now! I was anxiously awaiting the part of the story when we finally get to the pretty parts! And check it out, we’re here! Hooray!
Meet Linc, the chandelier in the guest bedroom. The plan is to glue pennies to all the walls in here and call it “The Lincoln Bedroom.” Won’t this chandelier look amazing in a room full of pennies? Why yes, yes it freakin’ will.
Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our previously scheduled programming for some chandelier porn. Bow-chicka-bow-bow! Or it is, brown chicken brown cow? Yeah, whatever, chandelier porn…
Voyeur chandelier porn from the outside looking in. Sexy!
Dear future house guests of PVR, you’re welcome!
But enough about the guest room. What about my room! Me me me, it’s time for me! See, it was at about this time, that I issued Errek a lofty birthday challenge. I had this crazy idea that I wanted to wake up on the morning of my birthday in our once-and-forever master bedroom. As far as birthday presents go, it may seem a little weird, but considering how many different parts of the house we’d slept in over the years as we moved our little one-room igloo around, I was ready to be in our once-and-forever master bedroom.
Challenge accepted!
Errek took to finishing out the master bedroom, bathroom, and closet. First up, the closet. Lights, ladder, action!
And the bathroom ceiling was next.
Lots of lights for such a little space.
With the ceiling up, he tackled the walls. Everywhere where you see the gray Durarock, that will be tile. And the white or green drywall will be regular walls (or will be behind the cabinets). Also, in the interior walls, those that didn’t get weather tight foam insulation, Errek put in sound deadening batt insulation, cuz why not?
*cough* *cough* I think I got the black lung, pop.
Wow, just imagine how pretty that will be with tile! Le sigh. Someday. P.S. Don’t look too closely at my 0% pants reflection in the window. Kthanxbai!
And next up, Errek’s man cave shower.
So, now the closet and the bathroom were all done up, ready for move in. No sweat, right? Well, there was just this teeny tiny little obstacle — 47 sheets of drywall stacked on the bedroom floor.
Question: how do you get six and a half sheets of drywall onto the ceiling, when there are 47 sheets of drywall in the way of the panel lifter?
Answer: well you move all 47 sheets of drywall, piece by piece, into the living room. Did I mention that this drywall is super duper heavy, and ten feet long? I probably did, but it bears repeating at this juncture. Ugh!
But, with the drywall stack moved, progress could be made. First the OSB and then the drywall up top.
Next up, Errek insulated the wall between the bedroom and bathroom for sound, followed by OSB and drywall. By the way, Errek put OSB on this wall so that the house wouldn’t shift from east to west, because this is one of the few walls we have in the house that runs east-west.
And finally, to the pretty parts. Let there be light!
Oh and by the way, moving into the bedroom wasn’t my only birthday present. I got sparkles, too. More chandelier porn!
A few finishing touches, and it’s time to move in.
Peek-a-boo!
Good morning and happy birthday to me! Thank you, baby. I sure do love you.
