House Project - Day 113 - Drywall

It's been a long while since the last house project update. Since then, a lot has happened in the house: plumbing and electrical rough-ins were completed and passed inspection. More doors and windows were installed.

Our existing house did not have any insulation in the walls, so we took the opportunity to have insulation blown in during the remodeling. One place they didn't blow it into was the ceiling above the sun room. John the Builder still has to get the insulation in there somehow.

A central air-conditioning was installed in the attic to service the second floor. And the electrical system was consequently upgraded.

The new Majestic fireplace insert got installed into the fireplace bay in the family room. As is becoming the norm, Wendy and I struggled to find the unit with just the right combination of: size, efficiency, viewing area, refractory brick pattern, and install dimensions. Some compromises were made, as you might expect, and we ended up with a Majestic unit that had slightly less viewing area than originally planned. But the brick patter of the refractory ended up being just what Wendy wanted.

The door to the basement had to be relocated to the foyer, with the stairs re-routed to match. This would have made for a tight squeeze for moving anything into and out of the basement. Fortunately, the new foundation area has a bulkhead.

Most of the drywall was put up this past weekend. In the family room, the application of the drywall has predictably made the room feel smaller.

In particular, the ceiling feels lower than we otherwise would like. This may be because we recently visited my sister's new place in Brooklyn, with its nearly 10 foot ceilings!

With drywall in place, the new master bedroom has turned into the most dramatic new room in the house. The transition from hallway to raised bedroom level accentuates the feeling of the ceiling's height here, and the tray ceiling adds depth (I'm talking like an Iron Chef commentator). It's sort of a Frank Lloyd Wright thing happening there.

I hope to update with a little more regularity, but with an upcoming business trip, the next update probably won't happen until a bit after that.

As usual, there are more pictures uploaded to my Flickr "House" picture set than I've shown and/or linked to on this blog.