Processes and Patience

Seems like so many things in homebuilding take a long time, usually from waiting. Waiting for loans to go through, waiting for subs to call back, waiting for orders to come in, waiting for good weather. And while it does teach us patience, it also teaches us that good things can't be rushed. It takes time to do something right. Hurrying through a project or a process will only mess it up. I have learned this a thousand times over these last few months.

After we completed the insulation in March, I thought, "Yes, the sheetrock and then the mudding and then only a few weeks till we move in. Definitely be in by June!" Har, har, har. That was the biggest laugh of the century :) In my peewee brain, I thought that surely my hubby will be able to get the sheetrock/mudding done in a couple of weeks. My poor hubby, trying to live up to my unbelievable expectations!! THIS is where those processes and patience came into play. (I have to pause and insert that this post will be mostly a brag book on Paul :))

We bought our sheetrock and it began! Fun. Fun. Paul began the arduous journey in the middle of March of being a one-man team of sheetrock hangers. After working 12 hour night shifts, he would usually come home and sleep for four hours, get up and head over to the land and work. Two things were a blessing. First, Paul's work allowed him to borrow their sheetrock lifter; a handy red device that lifts sheetrock against the ceiling and holds it there so it can be nailed in. And secondly was the people who came and helped, namely Joel Franks and Nate Shaver. Thanks guys! I can't say there wasn't a time or two where I helped hold sheetrock against the wall, but I was always excusing myself so I didn't do that too much :)

I won't go into all the details of drudgery, lack of sleep, moments (or hours) of doubt and other such things, but I will say Paul finished with the sheetrock in six weeks. Hanging, that is. And the Lord was good and allowed us to have enough left over to finish the upstairs (which we won't do until later). During that time we ordered the wood flooring! We hadn't quite settled on a place to get it from. We looked at Lowe's, discount flooring stores, upscale flooring stores, online and finally decided to order it online. I searched and searched and searched online, read reviews, did comparisons and came upon http://www.simplefloors.com/ a wonderful website specializing in laminate, hardwood, engineered wood and tile flooring. Paul and I had decided beforehand to do a medium color hardwood instead of engineered wood. Nothing against engineered, I just absolutely love hardwood. It has character, ages well and needs less upkeep. A medium color, because, well, because it hides dirt! You may call me lazy, but hey! :) We ordered 1200 square feet of Honey Oak, 6 inch wide reclaimed wood planks that are 7 feet long, with thresholds and stair thingies (he he). It came with padding attached and weighed over three thousand pounds!! That was a very scary decision. I kept second guessing myself (of course!) and ordered a bunch of samples before, looked at tons of pictures and read what others wrote about their Honey Oak flooring. It got great reviews and it was only $3.69 a sf. The flooring came just one week later on a huge flatbed truck and the nicest truck driver helped Paul carry all that flooring upstairs to be stored until we needed it. So nice! Can't wait to see what it looks like down!!

So, now we come to the mudding. Another huge, massive process that I was determined would only take two weeks and instead took almost eight. In fact, Paul is finishing up the large room, mudding the butt joints and the flats. It's his last coat on those and then he will be sanding it. On my next post, I will have pictures of finished rooms that we completed so we could lay the flooring. It's starting to come together, but if it wasn't for loads of patience (whether we wanted to be patient or not) we would have pulled our hair out. The Lord is good and I will be the first to admit that I had my moments! But with the end in sight it is clearer and these are the moments we have been waiting for. Let's just say we will never build a house again! lol :)



Sorry for the long wait between posts, but who wants to read over and over again about hanging and mudding sheetrock? :)

With things happening fast, be prepared to look at lots of pictures. On that note, take a look at my slideshow I put together up at the top. From the beginning to the end (or almost!) it is the account of our journey:) Enjoy!!

On to build,

Rachael