poplar road

I came home on the 26th with my sister Erika and her boyfriend Chris, and while they enjoyed the Shuswap (and frequent llama feedings, of course), Richard and I continued with the master suite and main bath reno. He worked on the electrical; I sanded, finished mudding, and primed the main bath. During the week, I finished painting the bathroom and cleaned off the floor, on which we've left the original linoleum. Friday night, we laid some of the maple-look laminate we kept from the old guest bedroom over top of the lino. Not ideal for a bathroom, but hey, it's free, and it looks great. It's the guest bathroom, not the regularly used one, so it should hold up well enough for a while. With the floor in, Richard installed the new toilet. This thing uses half the water of a standard toilet and could probably suck down one of the neighbour's shitzus without a hiccup. Kind of scary, actually.

Saturday morning we tidied up the master suite and Richard framed in the 17 feet of closet along the east wall. I took a truck load to the dump just before it began to rain. It has cooled down a lot in the past week and rained quite a bit this weekend, which made working on insulation and drywall more difficult, but at least it's a comfortable temperature. It didn't really pour until we'd finished insulating on Sunday afternoon. I could hear it coming down as I stepped out of the shower in the main bath, which we'd just surrounded with sound insulation – and it's the only room in the upstairs without an exterior wall. Buckets of rain, but it was over by the time we left for the city, for our monthly HD run. Paint, moldings, and 4"x4" stone tile for the counter, backsplash and tub surround in the main bath (which we were able to do because we reused the laminate for the floor.) I have my work cut out for me preparing the tile with sealant this week.

This morning we had just finished taping the vapour barrier and were clearing tools etc from the room when Jonathan came in. He needed Richard's help with something, so he insisted on helping him get the main sheets of drywall on the walls first. I was amazed how quickly they did the largest walls, starting with the bedroom window in the photo. After lunch Richard was on his own and it went more slowly, with me getting underfoot trying to stick the mesh on the joints and sweep up the gyprock waste. I'm doing the mudding during the day this week, although we didn't quite get all the drywall on. Close enough that we can probably prime next Sunday, though. Hooray!

We quit at 7 tonight. Richard is back at work in the morning, and in addition to Unimog stuff, he's got another little project going on. But I'll let him share his news another time. Right now my feet really want me to get to bed. Looking forward to sharing the rest of the reno pictures later this week!