Laundry Room Wall Warts

These next few posts aren't too exciting but I want to be able to remember everything we did last year so you'll just have to bear with me. 

As we were planning to start work on the laundry room Andy found an old dryer vent cover that he wanted to patch with drywall and so we decided it was time to start removing the rest of the old intercom system around the house.  Since he was going to be patching and drywalling he wanted to do as many rooms as possible.  He removed the old intercom in the laundry room, guest room, both offices, and upstairs hall bathroom.

Good-bye intercom!

Good-bye painted over dryer vent cover.

This is the old vent outlet in the garage.  New vents must be vented outside so this change was made before we bought the house.

Finding more apple wallpaper.

The work created a temporary hole into the garage.

Which was quickly insulated and ready for new drywall.  We hope that taking the time to do some drywall work and fix some of the existing wall warts helps make the room look more finished in the end.

Oh, Holey Night

In the hallway between our front door and the kitchen we have these lovely wall warts.  

This one says "Transistor Intercom AM/FM Radio" and although it is connected to a whole-house intercom/speaker system it barely works.  We kept all of the speakers when we moved in (we have at least one in each room) but the wiring isn't usable for a new system and it would be very expensive to replace.  In prepping the hall to be painted we decided it was time for the speaker and intercom system to go.

And this lovely thing above the intercom system is our doorbell. We plan to replace the doorbell with a new one when we replace our front door (thanks mom and dad!) in the next few weeks, but we won't need such a large hole in the wall.

Andy started removing the panels and wiring

He had to add some 2x4s to frame out the holes so he could attach the new drywall.

With the drywall in place it was was already looking better.

The seams taped and spackled.

He has put several thin layers on since this picture and did a little bit of final sanding.  We won't know what to do with our new blank wall!

A Little Bit of Primer and a Little Bit of Paint

After the drywallers finished this is what the family room ceiling looked like.

We added a coat of primer to all of the new drywall last Saturday....

And on Sunday we painted all of the ceilings and closets.

6.5 gallons of primer and paint later...

 

After one coat of paint.  The picture doesn't do the new paint justice -- it's wonderful to have a real ceiling again (with lights, too)!

Power room ceiling with finished drywall.

And after one coat of primer and one coat of paint.  We obviously still have some work to do on the walls, but the powder room renovation is another project.  At least we have a fan!

Knee wall with finished drywall.  We have real corners!  We were also very please with how they transitioned to the old wall.

This is after one coat of primer.  Painting the hallway is another project.

No more nail pops at the top of the steps!

The old closet door location.

Good-bye door!

Real corners where the new closet meets the old ceiling.

The larger of the two closets.

After a coat of primer.

Almost seemless -- we just need to pick a paint color for the bedroom to finish the new closets.

The smaller closet.

Drywall Finishing -- Part 1

We hired a contractor to finish all of the drywall and he started last week.  The picture below is at the top of the step and although this isn't new drywall we had a ton of nail pops in this wall after our bathroom demolition several months ago.  

After the first coat -- still drying.

 

Dry after the second coat.

And a before photo as a reminder.  We were actually going to attempt this repair ourselves, but we were glad the the contractor was able to do it for us.  He chipped off the loose paint and taped over the nails. 

Looking at the new knee wall from the top of the steps.  There were three pieces of drywall that came together at the lower corner.  The two old ones weren't great to start and with the new addition there was a good bit of work to do.  You can see how they are starting to make the transition after the first coat.

Drying after the second coat.  Screw holes are filled and corner bead is in place.

This used to be the door to my old closet!

New closets after the first coat.

And after the second coat with the corners taped at the inside corner and corner bead installed on the outside corner.

Master bathroom and new closet.  It's finally starting to look like a room!

Drywall Install - Part 2: Bathroom, Closets, and Powder room

After our work last Friday on the ceiling room in the family room we spent Saturday and Sunday working on rest of the drywall.  Drywalling the walls was much easier and faster than the ceiling. 

Here are the closets -- finally closed in.

Then we moved to the only ceiling we had left to do -- the powder room.

While Andy was working on attaching the powder room ceiling I started removing the drywall around the old closet door in the master bedroom.  We could have just added a piece that fit the opening of the old door, but we preferred to add a new piece and reduce the number of joints.

Kodak was very interested in what was going on in the garage.

Then we moved into the master bathroom to hang as many full sheets as possible.

The view looking from the new bathroom closet down to the new tub.

The view from the tub to the new closet.

Andy used his fancy dremel tool to cut out the drywall for the new lights.

And when the weekend was finally over he showed me these gloves and asked if I thought he needed some new ones.