3 day Marathon.... who said it was easy?

We spent the last 3 days focused on one goal, get the Kitchen ready for the cabinet installers by Wednesday.

So what did we do this weekend?

Saturday:

1. Finish painting the den moldings
   
2. Remove Sink and sink cabinet from Kitchen
3. Remove Soffit from kitchen (smash, cut, yank, pull, clean, yank, pull, smash, and repeat)
4. Clean the removed Soffit so drywall can be attached (Note: Plaster walls have lovely SHARP wire embedded between the boards, so when prepping this surface and altering, many wounds will occur, even with gloves. So much wire cutting)
5. Fix broken Pipe! (when the soffit came down It hit a nice copper pipe for the sink... great... so I learned to clean, solder and fix copper pipe... good excuse to get a blow torch!)

Sunday:

1. Drywall soffit area: Cut drywall, glue, screw, glue screw, cut, chisel, push... You know, putting drywall on ceilings seems bad, and it is, but if you build a nice brace, and have a great assistant, its doable
2. Repair Broken Finger... So when purchasing drywall, i was yanking the drywall around to find a nice clean sheet, and Vanessa attempted to help me (though I didn't know she was helping) and her finger got smashed between 2 stacks of drywall. I've never seen her in so much pain, it was horrible, and swelled up like a balloon finger. I feel so bad about this. So we stopped for Ice, called Cheryl for advice, iced it all day and its in a splint. Poor Vanessa!!!
3. Remove linoleum flooring... Ok, so this was the SECOND layer of linoleum in the kitchen, with 2 layers of tack strips holding it down.. We took turns cutting the nail heads off to get the tack strips up, and Bobby and Mary did half of the kitchen floor scraping. (Note: the linoleum came up by peeling, but left a nice layer of cardboard and glue coating the floor) Scrape scrape scrape....

Monday:

1. Vanessa Came to the rescue (with broken finger) and did the other half of the floor scraping, for 6 hours straight, she is a champ!
2. Movement and addition of electrical outlets for Microwave, and Dishwasher, along with addition of GFCI protected outlets for wet areas.
3. Re-Insulating the attic above the kitchen. The insulation came down with the soffit, so I had to crawl up in our 2'-3' high attic and push in some insulation. THIS JOB SUCKS!! It was hot, the old insulation which looked like the same clean cellulose I was adding actually had fiberglass in it it, a therefore it was in me. It was also f*cking hot and cramped, and those rafters take no prisoners on the knees and elbows.
4. Drywall, taping, joint compound mudding......and as of 4:30 this morning as I stopped by the house for 2 hours before work, joint compound sanding

The room is about ready for the contractors tomorrow. Just a coat of primer and some joint compound cleanup is needed.

We ache!! This is the hardest labor I've done to date I think, and well its very satisfying, but painful.
It's harder than we thought it would be, but we've been able to work our asses off to keep our time lines.

Anywho, I'm sure Vanessa will post with her perspective, fill in the gaps I forgot, and lots of nifty pictures, just with my body and brain throbbing figured I'd drop in my 2 cents.

- B