Day Trip 12/16

I left Indianapolis about 10:30 and walked into the cottage a little before 1:00 on Saturday. We (CMV and I) made a decision to eventually remove all of the drywall in the house. The exterior walls are moldy, damp and poorly insulated, and the interior walls are not much better. I want as much of this completed before springtime comes, so I decided to remove the rest of the drywall in the bedroom.

I first removed the remaining pieces of trim molding and set them aside to take with me when I return home. I next, removed the electrical outlets and fixtures and pulled the carpet out of the room. Lastly, I went at the drywall with the pry bar and a hammer. My goal was to get as much drywall out of the house as I could and still leave that night. In the end, I cleared the remaining four room surfaces, and one wall in the other bedroom.





Once the bedrooms are stripped of drywall, we can make any necessary repairs and add insulation to the outer walls. We will also be able to hang the drywall because there will not be any need for plumber access.

In the wall cavity, I found a large abandoned wasps nest. I was very thankful it was not active, as I disturbed it quite a bit while pulling on the old drywall. If it had been active, I would have suffered from the encounter.

Little Jobs 12/09

This weekend, my friend JSE and I went up to the cottage on Friday night. We didn't expect to get much done that night, but wanted to be there in the morning to get working.


We went up without an agenda, and did not know what we were going to get accomplished. The first task we decided to tackle was to rebuild the corner cabinet in the kitchen. In order to do this, we first needed to buy a roll of insulation and a sheet of drywall. The rest of the kitchen drywall will wait for the plumber to install the pipes in the spring.





With the Insulation cut and in place, we hung the drywall and secured it in place with screws. The cabinet was rebuilt and attached to the wall. In order to clear up some space, we moved all of the cabinets back into the kitchen and set them in their approximate final location.




It was now time to repair the frame on the bathroom/ bedroom border wall. Two studs were removed and replaced, as well as a section of the bottom plate. There was no way to remove the studs without damaging the drywall on the bedroom side of the wall, so we completely removed it ahead of time. After cleaning up the pieces of drywall and almost filling the back of the truck, we could finally repair the wall section.




CMV requested that we bring her as many pieces of trim that we could, so she can work on them over the winter. I removed and labeled them (to ease the re-installation) and loaded them into the truck.

Not Feeling Like Work 12/2

We arrived at the cottage late in the afternoon on Saturday. Due to a loss in the family, I really didn't feel like working, but last weekend we left a large hole in the bathroom floor that had to be covered.

Instead of starting on the floor Saturday evening, I re-wired the electric in the kitchen. I installed new outlets, but left the old boxes. I will replace the electrical boxes when we install the new drywall in the spring.


Sunday morning, we finished replacing the floor joists and cutting the new floor. The bathroom floor will be tiled eventually, so we are only laying one layer of plywood.

There are one or two places in the wall framing that will require some work, but that will need to wait for another weekend.

Back to the Bathroom 11/25

This weekend, we removed the balance of the drywall in the bathroom. We also decided to pull up the old floor to level it with the concrete slab that leads to the bedrooms. When we pulled the floor boards, we were treated to a nice surprise.

The floor had been repaired at some point, and someone decided it would be a good idea to replace the joists with 2x4 and some 2x6 boards. These boards were held up with concrete blocks and scrap 2x4 pieces. Trying to figure out a solution to this situation had us puzzled.

Once we settled on a course of action, we got to work. The task took more time than our weekend allowed, so we were forced to leave a large hole in the house.