More mudding

I don't think that the ratio of mess and dust equals the amount of work completed. The dust gets everywhere. Many people warned me, but I don't think you can fully understand until you experience it. Pretty much from the driveway, up the stairs, on the deck, and the whole upstairs is covered in dust. We've tried to seal off the downstairs with some plastic and paper, which helps.
The "zip-strip" detail that we did forced us to do the floor first, before the drywall. That meant we needed to cover the floors for some protection. I opted to go with a building rosin paper. First it's cheaper than going with plastic. Second, it's easier to put down. Third, it's not slippery to walk on. On the downside, it tears and absorbs some water. Don't expect your drywallers to go the extra mile and repair the tears if you put the paper down, which I did. I assume that if you were paying them to do that prep work they would fix it, but I don't know. I didn't have the time each night or morning to repair it all, plus it was hard to get anything to stick with all the dust. Just know that there will be some serious clean-up if you ever do something like this.

mudding it up

Anyone who's been around to the place knows that we're further along than this. Quite a bit further along actually. However, getting to be where we're at in the process has left little time to keep up to date on the blog. At this point in the progress that these photos were taken you can see how much of a mess drywall is. I know there are better products out there and maybe at some point I'll get around to showing some of those. Right now though, focus is just on getting the place done.

"Zip-Strip" detail

"Zip-Strip" with one laye of plaster.

Backsplash thoughts

We've spent the last few weeks debating backsplash materials. We wanted to do some rectangular tile, like a subway style or thinner like this Walker Zanger Skyline tile which is more 1.5"x6" and a thinner piece. I guess I never realized how expensive glass tile can be for something cool.
We were also looking at doing a sleek stainless tile but again, it was a little too much on our tight budget.,

been busy

At this point in the process the drywall has all be hung and is awaiting tape and mud, cornerbead, and "zip-strip". Zip-strip is just another profile for drywall edges that gives you a super clean straight line at the bottom and top of your drywall panel. It also allows the mudder to mud down to the bottom of the drywall and blend the zip strip into the wall. It has this little removable piece that you "zip" off when it's all done and gives you a clean line at the floor. I image that it's a detail the people over at grassrootsmodern.com would go for.
Here's the detail...with other images coming later

Energy film

The majority of our windows in the house are single pane glass. And with the windows being about 4'wx7'h, that's a lot of glass that is not that energy efficient. While the trees on our site protect most of the house from sun throughout the day, the low evening light does come through below the branches. We get amazing light in the house at those times of the day, but also some heat gain. I don't know what the winter condition is like yet, but I imagine the engery efficiency is pretty poor. Now with all the renovation that we've done, we are also pretty poor and can not afford to put in new windows at the moment. So I came across this product, energy-film.com.
Here is what they claim:
Energy Film is made of a spectrally selective material that blocks 70% of thermal solar energy in summer and reduces heat loss through windows in winter. It blocks 97% of UV light while still allowing 77% of natural light into the room. Energy film also has excellent visual clarity.

"An estimated $30 billion or more of Energy is lost per year through single pane windows"

"An average Home Loses 25% of Energy Through Windows"

I'm interested in trying this product out until we can afford new windows in the house. Anybody out there familiar with this product? How easy is it to install, does it work, do you notice the film?

Drywalling

This is what the house looks like a week later after starting renovations. On Friday the drywall crew delivered all the gyp board, Monday they began hanging. They got about halfway done.

renovation day 6

At this point most all demo is done. I think all the flooring has been laid. We had to move the furniture out of the front room so we could finish laying the floor in that room. This also allowed us to leave some room for the drywall crew that will be coming.