Drywall Cometh

Today was drywall delivery day.  Rob had ordered all the garage wall drywall and since we are home on holidays, we can await its arrival.  Again, like last time , they said they would call before they arrived but I knew they wouldn't (like last time). So we (me) were up at 7:00 in case they came at 8:00.  I even hopped into my ski pants at 8:00 so I'd be ready.  The truck rolled up at 9:30, so at least it was light outside (and warmer than yesterday--yesterday was minus 30 with who knows how much wind chill; today was a balmy minus 24).

It was our buddy Gavin from the last delivery that came.  He was a great guy.  He drove the 25 drywall sheets over to the garage from across the street (with Rob ready to stop traffic, but they stopped on their own), and somehow he and Rob got them onto a pallet and then pallet-jacked it into position at the front of the garage (as these sheets will be living with us for awhile before getting installed, we want them out of the parking zone).  Then they had to find some other pallets and wood to put under the two ends so they didn't droop.  I missed all this, as I was guarding Rob's running car (his car is a tad fussy, so has to be warmed up before being turned off and he didn't have a spare key, so left it unlocked and running on the street).

And as you can see in the last three photos below, we can park all cars in the garage with the drywall, and Rob has about six inches at the front of the pile and six inches from the door to park!  Just made it.

Let There Be Light!

(this post was for December 8, but I haven't had time to post it).

Yes, it's a miracle!  The lights are on and somebody is home!  Rob worked very hard to get most of the outside electrical work done, during the mild weather we were having.  Of course, as you can see in one of the photos, he had to dig out the snow from the back of the truck in order to stand on it to install the lights... oh well.

Even the inside of the garage is brighter than the sun.  Lots and lots and lots of lights.  Sure helps having them on when we are doing work--instead of dragging the one work light around.

Next step:  blowing the attic insulation!

Getting Toasty Now

Today we started opening the bundles of batts of insulation and tucking them between the studs on the walls.  It went pretty easy!  I'd say, the easiest of all the tasks so far.  We went through three bundles (each bundle has 16 batts inside, which conveniently fit perfectly inside the spacing of the suds--just like Rob planned!)) and then called it a day.  The remaining openings are tricky ones....either they have electrical plus ins or lights which Rob has to wire in before the insulation goes in. (we took the day off on Sunday, as Monday is my birthday and Rob threw a surprise dinner party for me on Saturday night...so taking a day off from Monster Garage is a birthday present to me from me!; and it's minus 31 below here, so even though the garage is toasty, it's not THAT toasty.)

We Have a Ceiling!

Yes, it's true!  We finally got the ceiling drywall all up.  We have an enclosed ceiling now.  And with the heater running, it stays a toasty 10 degrees Celsius. We worked about 8 hours on Saturday and on Sunday, finishing at 7 p.m. on Sunday--after two hours in the morning of shovelling the 10-15 cm of snow we got on Saturday.  Rob cranked out the new snowblower--nifty.
We also installed a hatch to the ceiling--a little trap door in reverse.  And earlier in the week, I had cleared up the work bench to become a work bench again, not a clutter pile. And we squeezed in a visit on Saturday night with Kim to Winston's Pub to drink Rebellion Brewing's first keg release in Saskatoon (our friend Jamie is head brewmaster and part owner of it).  Way cool! (I was the DD, and we plowed forth in the raging snow storm for this magic elixir). So all in all, a pretty eventful weekend.

Four boards closer

Well this past weekend, we finally got all the poly up on the ceiling, in preparation for the drywall.  We went out to the garage on Saturday at noon and came back in at 8:00 p.m.  Man it was cold!  We did turn on Mr. Heater, and even with no insulation and drywall, it took the temperature up to 10 degrees C, up from .5 when we started. Then Sunday we went 10-3, only rescued by good friends who invited us over to watch the CFL western semi finals (Riders lost to Edmonton).  But the good news is we got four more sheets of drywall up on the ceiling (2-8', 1-10', 1-12'). Plus doing cut outs around lights, Mr. Heater, and the garage door opener.  That drywall lift is my favourite tool!  The boards slide on, Rob cranks it up, and I stand on the ladder while he manoeuvers it into place.  Plop! I think we are half way there.  Once the ceiling is done, we get to do insulation, and then....Mr. Heater can stay on throughout winter, keeping my car nice and toasty!

It doesn't rain, it pours

So this past weekend, it snowed, temperatures dropped to minus 15 with a windchill of minus 22, we hosted a dinner party for nine people, and we were prepping the house and garage for more work.  Tuesday is the Remembrance Day holiday, so Rob and I took off Monday to do more garage work--he arranged for delivery of drywall sheets for the ceiling, insulation for the ceiling (that we blow in), and insulation for the walls.  He also arranged for the alarm company to come and re-alarm the garage.

So on Sunday, after putting away dishes from the party and general clean up, we spent a very cold afternoon in the garage, installing those cardboard vents in the eves, then poly, then moving the Healey to put up more vents and more poly.  Then Monday morning, we are expecting the drywall and insulation some time in the morning (we estimated after 11 due to loading the trucks, warming up the trucks, driving around etc), and expecting the alarm guy some time between 9 and 11:00.  So we are putzing around in our pyjamas, having coffee, putting away dishes, and Rob is calling the Building Department as they sent him another letter saying he needs to call for a garage inspection (they had sent him a letter a month ago saying the same thing so he called but they said as it was close to being done, don't bother with an inspection until fully done).  So as he's chatting away, I see a big Rona flatbed drive by and park--at 9:15!.  Yikes. 

I throw on my ski pants and parka and go meet the guy.  Nice guy--Gavin.  I'm telling him where we want the stuff put (on one side, so we can still park and work on the other side), then Rob comes out.  Gavin drops off the drywall, and we hand lift it into the parking spot.  Then Gavin drops a pallet of insulation, and he and Rob shimmy it into the spot, and do that with the second load.  Then we stand around having coffee and a nice chat about installation tips, cars, teenagers, cleaning, and clothes.  Only interrupted by a call from the alarm guy--saying he's at the front door!  Yikes.

So we say goodbye to Gavin and let in the alarm guy at 10:00.  He's doing stuff downstairs, upstairs in the kitchen, and at the garage.  He's here for 7 hours but gets all connected. And then we phoned and paid the final installment on our cruise.  Whew

--what a day!

Post for October 26

Slightly delayed with this post, as we were in Toronto last week (Rob had a conference and I had a mini holiday).  So this post is what we did the weekend of October 25/26.
We worked on the east face--did all the grey boards on either side of the big garage door, then finished the Tyvec on the peak, and then prepped for the installation of the white trim boards.  That took awhile and the clock was ticking, because....we had to move the remaining 60 some Hardie plank boards over the side of the garage so I (and the rest of the cars) could park in the garage before winter came.  So we moved the boards in clumps of about 4 or 5--they are very long and very heavy and don't want to snap them. Then we swept out the grit and moved tools around, and finally, voila, we can park in the garage once more!

More cut arounds on the south face

Building on the success of last week, we again started doing cut outs on the two gas meters on the south side.  That took all day.  We started at 9:00 a.m. and finally by 6:00 p.m. got to the first row of normal boards.  While Rob was fiddling with the cut outs, I went up on the ladder on the north face, filling nail holes with silicone, and cleaning out the gutters at the same time.

But the excitement of the day was the opening of the second bundle of boards!  We had 240 boards delivered--120 on each pallet.  We finished the first pallet last week, and cracked into the second bundle today. 

Which means we are reducing the boards pile, which means I will be able to park in the garage hopefully sometime before the snow comes, as the boards are blocking access into the garage.  Yay!

Ascent of West Face--Oct 12

This blog is a week late, but it's not much fun to blog without being able to load pictures, so I'm not in a rush to upload.  One day it will get fixed...

So this was the Thanksgiving Day long weekend.  Rob came up on Thursday night, and started doing installation of lights on the west face on Friday while I was at work.  Then he started moving boards up past the window.  And then....we put up tyvek, framed the peak, and a bottom triangle board, so now all the boards go up to the middle peak.  The peak will be filled in in the spring.  It looks so sharp.

And we had time to even go to the south face and do some complicated cut outs of the gas meter.  That was fiddly.  We got three rows installed.
But the highlight of the day was that we finally finished going through the first bundle of boards!  Half way there.

Then it was time on Sunday at noon to head to the lake to close up the cabin.  Gee, the chores never end!

And now the west face

So this weekend we tackled the west face--which includes cutting around the door and window.  But because the weather was wet on Saturday, we spent most of the day fiddling with the heater--getting it connected, wired, and up and running.  And aside from that slight wiring issue that caused the breaker to blow because the wrong white and black wires were crossed (!), we now have heat.  Then the sun came out so we headed outside to start the boards.

A few rows of starting boards (and we have to cut two boards on each row), we hit the window and then measured 8 boards to go from the window to the edge.  That went pretty quickly and used up a lot of boards.  Then we nailed.  Got a good rhythm going--cut them all, then move the gecko gauges, then silicon, and level, then nail.  Repeat as needed.  Then we did the other side of the window to the door.

After that, it was the little strip beside the door and edge--about 10 3/4" long.  And then the board spanning on top of the door.  Let's not forget the drip edge. And believe it or not, all the boards lined up!  It looks so sharp to see blue boards instead of tyvek.

We Reached the Summit!

This post is about last weekend (Sept 27).  We reached the summit of the north face!  It took all weekend but at 7:50 p.m. on Sunday night, we airnailed the last board.  Boy, does its get dark at 6:30, so we were nailing in the dark but the street lights sure helped.

We measured, cut, levelled, and nailed.  And made a huge dent in the pile of boards in the garage.  It took three boards per row, and we had 22 rows--so 66 boards up on the wall.

We crested the fence at 11:35 a.m. on Saturday morning.  And kept going.  Had to add the white board at the top, and then cut the blue board to fit it, but we made it.

Ascent of the North Face

(Note:  Still not able to do photos--too bad, cause this one's a really good one)


This weekend was the weekend to actually start installing hardie board siding.  We decided to do the north side of the garage first, as that is a plain rectangle with no fancy cutting in around windows or doors or peaks.  I called it the north face, and when one climbs mountains (which this feels like), you do an ascent, hence our expedition this weekend is the ascent of the north face!

On any expedition, you need to research your plan, which involved Rob watching numerous videos on siding and how to use the gecko gauges.

We then installed the drip edges, marked stud lines, snapped chalk lines vertical and horizontal, and assembled the numerous cutting saws for edging strips. and that was just on Saturday. Oh and cut out 240 black squares from tar paper to install inbetween the joints for moisture barriers.

So Sunday was the day of the ascent. our first board when int at 11:30 and our last board at 7:30.  A few air nailer issues with too much pressure and then not enough. And we had to do two rows of boards to get established before we could break out the gecko gauges.  So it involved me holding boards tying to get them level.  Once we had enough for the gekkos to hang onto, they worked like a charm!

We would carry, measure, cut (with me holding the shop vac to suck up any noxious dust while we both work face masks), then siliconing the ends, levelling, and finally nailing.  Oh, and cutting out two boards to install future plug in receptacles.

Six rows and 18 boards later, we had a start.  But Rob tells me that that is only 7% of the total boards used so far.  Not a major ascent, but a start.