The property needs some TLC. However, the priority is to get the suites done first. In the mean time, a little help is given to the sunflowers at the front.
Month: September 2026
begin finishing touches, begin move-in
The tenants will be here at 10:00am to begin moving in. Still lots to do.
7:45am – With the painting done in the kitchen and living room, the living room lights were mounted.
9:09am – The bathroom was primed yesterday and painted this morning. The walls need some drywall mud and paint touch-ups but are adequately done. Even though there is no 240VAC dryer, the outlet was mounted.
more cabinets, range, paint, bathroom sand and prime
This morning, Erin at Home Depot set me up with new cabinet legs and the little screws needed to hold the soft-close mechanisms in place. Perhaps I can still find the others, but, in the mean time, I need these to move forward. The 36″ corner cabinets have 8 legs.
Levelling these is pretty easy. You just twist the legs in or out.
kitchen primer, cabs; bath skim coat
I wish we had a few more days of preparation. The place will not be ready in time. I’ll have to negotiation a deal with them.
I started the kitchen. I removed all the stored boxes and began priming. As it turns out, Dave was not done mudding some of the ceiling. I saw one piece of green tape but didn’t know how far it went out.
Next, priming the living room. Primer complete, this is how things stood.
more drywalling and taping
As the title says, more drywalling was done today. The bathroom must be finished soon so that Dave can come in and tape. However, more fiasco happened as well.
I found, in trying to put up this sheet on the top half of the east wall, that there was no backing at the top. I added some angled pieces and Tuck taped the cut vapour barrier.
I say fiasco because it was a miserable failure, bulging, breaking, sticking, being the right size but not shape, etc. I ended up ripping it from the wall in many pieces and tossing it outside.
CO, ABS, DW, WC
More DW (drywall) from HD (Home Depot).
Along with the drywall, I got a regular 3″ ABS elbow and finished off the vent stack.
ceiling drywall, SONOpan, protector plates, dryer outlet
Things seem to go so slowly until I look back at the pictures of what has been done so far. Progress is being made.
Today the rest of the ceiling drywall in the suite went up. The stairway slanted wall was done first. I had cut it a little too big, not being able to measure accurately. Dave and I struggled to get it into place. As well, the backing put into the east side wasn’t staying in place, so the drywall kept raising up. I’m confident the weight of the ceiling will keep it down. I’ll get up into the attic and secure it when there is time.
The attic hatch was cut from the ceiling before putting this piece up. Again, a measurement glitch meant that the piece was two inches too long.
to do this, you must do that first
This is the story of this house renovation. To do this, you must do that first. It seems that anything done was to cover up something else. It was had been a constant battle, one that makes every task take forever.
Outside correcting old mistakes, ordinary renovation tasks always seem to play out this way, too.
The goal was to add drywall to the bedroom door frame.
To do that, I have to drywall the stairway wall.
To do that, I have to fur the adjacent wall directly over the stairway.
But first, I have to rebuild the header to fix the hanging balloon stud that was cut through decades ago.
To do that, I have to reroute all the wiring.
But before that, I have to chip away at some of the rabbeted shiplap clad boards and planks.
Etc. etc. etc.
So Dave ended up adding the drywall himself. <sigh> Someone else is doing my job.
I was going to add stairway ceiling drywall yesterday, but first I had to add furring strips. I couldn’t mount them with screws in the sloped wall area as there was no room above the rafter to stuff the drill (driver). So I went to Canadian Tire and found a 2-pack similar to this for $4.99. Two! The floor clerk was there and asked me if I needed help, and I told her I need 50 or 100, not 2. She didn’t have any.
doors, drywall prep
Among today’s tasks
- hang bathroom door
- paint doors
- finish drywalling dormer window
- trim around bedroom door
- prep remaining ceilings for drywall
drywall, blocking, door framing 45°
Eight more sheets of 1/2″ drywall.
The dining area dormer drywall took a couple of tries. I mistakenly assumed one side would take the opposite cut of the other. Oops. Not enough coffee yet (10:00am!). But it’s done now.
