Thursday

While Menards and I had more morning quality time, the guys got an early start in the attic. We had an extra helper coming and the plan was to do some of the heavy lifting with his added muscle.

The guys started by taking down all the batts of insulation from between the joists in the dining room, taking out the few existing walk boards, and cleaning up the crud that fell out of the attic space.

It was truly nasty up there.

They found this sign up in the attic. Our guess was maybe it was a high school event thing, as it seems to be in the school colors?

The kids weeded the flower garden while it was still cool enough outside.

Work paused on the attic when one of the guys had to leave; Matt and I planned out lighting.

Matt rewired the air conditioner. No more giant external conduit attached to the siding!

Friday

The guys returned to work on the attic. They ran long 2x4s on top of and perpendicular to the joists, fastened them with structural screws, and then insulated between the top 2x4s before fastening down the OSB plywood on the very top. All of this fixed some structural problems with the ceiling joists while creating a lot of storage space in the attic. Since they’d done most of the prep work the day before, it went pretty quickly.

The kids and I hammered stud guards on top of wires that were at particular risk of perhaps getting a screw or nail driven into them at some point.

Stud guards are metal plates that have short spikes to hold them in place, hiding under the drywall to deflect any invading hardware that might cause a wiring or plumbing disaster.

We also went around the walls with an eagle eye and pulled any stray hardware that might interfere with drywall. I found this huge, cool spike in one of the ancient timbers.

The guys went back to wiring.

So.

Much.

Wiring.

Look at all that storage space in the attic!

Saturday

My brain felt really full. So I mapped the things on my brain before I headed over…turns out there was a reason it felt that way.

Menards unexpectedly called Matt, regarding our huge shipment of drywall supplies that wasn’t supposed to arrive for another week.

Would he be available to receive the delivery in twenty minutes?

Oh.

Yeah.

That’s a lot of drywall.

Matt had told me that he didn’t think we needed a trip to Menards that day…but then we needed another roll of wire.

This directions-challenged girl doesn’t even need a GPS to Save-Big-Money anymore.

Just a green bumper sticker that says “Follow me for your own home fix-it solutions.” Menards should pay me for the marketing.

Wiring, wiring, wiring. Matt had to spend some highly miserable time in the attic of the second story (not very accessible, different from the one pictured previously) working on running the lights to the second story.

I started applying fire stop spray foam to the areas the guys had finished wiring. The code is to fill all the holes drilled for the wires and pipes, restricting airflow and flame travel inside the walls should a fire break out in the house.

At the end of the day, we had to leave our giant stack of materials on the driveway, wrapped up in sheet plastic to hopefully protect it from incoming rain.

Sunday

Welp, after a solid week of working we hadn’t finished prepping the house for drywall. So Matt and I took a Sunday date and…worked on the house together.

What do we do when we’re not working? I don’t know…I really don’t know. Let me work on that and get back to you.

In all seriousness, though, it was actually pretty enjoyable, besides it being very hot, sticky, and itchy. Quality alone time with each other is rare.

By the end of Sunday, we had the entire upstairs ready for the drywall crew.

Just the downstairs left to finish…