No More Xray Vision - Looking Through Walls

The dry wall craftsmen have been at work for the past couple of weeks.  It's hard, difficult and often dirty work and these guys are like artists making seams and screw holes disappear.  Walking around on stilts all day, craning your neck back looking at the ceiling should be in the book of Yoga exercises.  Below is some of their handy work.

Here is the entry hall after the drywall was hung, but before it was taped.

This is the same view after the work is complete.  The man at the left is Dan the painter.  He is in the process of prepping the walls so the painting can begin next week.

The drywall inspector makes a surprise visit.

Getting Stoned

The stone masons have been at the house for a couple of weeks putting the stone facade on the front of the house.  We decided to use cultured stone, man made, rather than real stone, found in nature, for several reasons.  It is much more cost effective, it goes up faster and it is difficult to tell it from the real thing.

 The above picture is of some of the individual stones before they have been put on the house.  The bottoms of these stones are flat and adhere to the house very uniformly. The stones for the corners of the house are formed at a right angle at one end so they wrap around and look natural.  Double click on the above picture to see how natural these stones look.

The firs step is to nail wire mesh to the side of the house.  It looks like the same kind of wire mesh that is used to plaster a wall.

When the mesh is up mortar is troweled on to create a flat surface.  These gentlemen, Tom and Rick, (not me and my son-in-law) are in the process of covering the mesh with mortar.

When the wall is dry or almost dry, the stones are placed on the wall by putting mortar on the back of the stone like a bricklayer would do on the bottom and sides of a brick. Then, the stone is pressed on to the wall and it just stays there.  Later, after the mortar behind the stone has dried, they come back and fill in between the stones with more mortar.  They use a tapered canvas bag (like a baker uses to decorate a cake) filled with mortar and they squeeze it between the stones.  A small trowel is then used to smooth out the mortar.

Here is one section of the front about 3/4 completed.  The stone is shipped in the pallet sized boxes in the foreground.

Is It Drywall or Sheetrock ? Joint Compound or Mud?

The drywall was delivered about a week ago and the craftsmen are busy hanging it.  They worked on the garage first because they wanted to get the mud on out there before the weather got any colder.  We will have heat if we need it when they start to mud in the house

Drywall Ready To Go On The Walls

The Appropriate Drywall Was Delivered To Each Room.  One Of The Upper Windows Was Removed To Get It To The Second Floor.

Garage Taped And Mudded .

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Where The $$ Are Going

"We've got to put a lot of money into changing behavior."
Bill Gates

"Let us not be satisfied with just giving money.  Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them.  So, spread your love everywhere you go."
Mother Teresa

I'm guessing that this project is near the half way point.  Here are how the costs break down so far.  These are construction costs only.  They do not include any of the preliminary expenses such as tear down, unhooking the old utilities and tree removal.