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2006-09-27 - 11:58 p.m.

hockeycup

Dude, you are so at the wrong place at the wrong time.


So after about ten hours of work, I have exactly what I started with. Talk about unfulfilling.

When I first made the opening from our living room to our kitchen into a doublewide French door, (t used to be a narrow door half way down the hall made both room feel smaller than they were) I only had 2x4 stock around. This would not normally be a problem as modern walls are framed with the same 2x4�s However our house has real two by fours by God.

2 1/8 by 4 1/8 actual measurements as opposed to the 1-� by 3 � skinny little things they call 2x4�s today.

So to fill in the extra space on either side, I shimmed and blocked and called it good. It was not good. It kept cracking around the headers and no matter how many shims I used it just did not have the same structure as the existing framing.

So yesterday and to day I pulled down all the drywall and reframed the whole opening. I used 2x6�s ripped down to the dimension of the original lumber. It always takes three times as long to rebuild something in place as opposed to just building from scratch, no exception here. I had to brace one side at a time as I pulled out the king studs and replaced them with the wider stock, then pry the header apart and insert a piece of � ply to make it wide enough, then do the same on the other side.

After I had it all reframed I had to rewire the light box that is part of that section of the wall, the most complicated box in our house with two three way switches controlling six lights. Finally I re-hung all the dry wall on both sides of the wall. After I have some tea I�m going to clear out the living room so I can do all the mud work at one go. I also cut my thumb wide open last night, which is slowing me down a bit. The worst part is that I was using the rotozip to cut the drywall, and the bit broke which happens fairly often. I reached out with my bare hand and grabbed the bit to pull it out of the wall. It was stuck and my hand slipped off. I felt it cut my finger, and thought �Dang, that thing is sharp!� as I reached for it a second time and sliced my thumb open. You just can�t fix stupid.

And people wonder why my house is taking so long. : ) I could have built two houses from scratch in the time it�s taken me to teardown, fix and then re-do just about everything in my house. I have special walls in the house, walls that have had no work done on them at all. I think there are two of them.

Lots to do before Jill comes Friday, I�d really like the place to look good when she gets here. She should come every week, good motivation.

-Justus

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