Under Construction- Ranch to Colonial Conversion.
Part 3: The Boring Bits
So, wiring might not be the kind of thing you think hard
about. But our choice of a cathedral ceiling meant that any wiring we
didn't put in during construction would be prohibitively annoying to
add later. So we put in wiring not only for electricity and phones, but
also TV cable (even though we don't expect to get it anytime soon) and
computer cable (yay, broadband!). Yes, you knew we were geeks. Why else
would this be on a website again?
Lights and ceiling fans need electricity too.
Here is where I confess that there are no pictures of
plumbing, even though this went in at the same time as the electricity.
We didn't need another bathroom (the house already having three), but
of course we did need heat. Due to the size difference, the the
office/sewing room is a different heat zone from the library.
Lots of insulation to shut out cold NH winters. This
stuff was behind plastic, so it wasn't too bad, but we had additional
insulation put in the garage as well and it really stank until they got
the drywall up.
More insulation. We left it a little late to find
someone to install the chimney for the woodstove, so it went in after
the insulation had already been done.
The rain had upset everyone's summer schedules, so we
wound up having to wait a couple of weeks for drywallers. The first day
I came home to find the place full of 16 foot sheets of drywall, it was
a welcome sign of progress. If a little awkward to walk around.
Drywall to the left of us.
Drywall to the right of us.
They started with the stairwell/dining room area, which
had a lot of odd and tricky corners. Progress was slow.
They continued through the downstairs hall.
And finally started on the upstairs. Once the drywall
was all up, it was taped and the cracks covered with joint compound.
The ceilings were sprayed with a watered down formula of joint compound
and textured. This not only provided an attractive ceiling cover; it
meant we didn't need to paint the ceilings. The spraying was done in
just two days, despite it being the two hottest, stickiest days of the
entire summer.
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