Reflecting and Contracting Out

It's been almost two months now since I "re-activated" this blog. It's also been about two months since the warm weather came, which really allowed us to get back to work on the outside of the house.

So let's reflect on what we've achieved in that two months:

• In the upstairs bathroom, the new subfloor, tub, drywall, and cement board were all installed. Wendy also laid the mosaic tile floor last weekend and is starting on the subway wall tiles tonight
• The upstairs back deck was finished - new roof, railing, and fibreglass deck
• The surface was torn off the main floor back deck
• Drywall that was piling up around the house was dumped, and more drywall was torn out of the suites, the front hall, and Kayleigh's bedroom
• A dumpster was brought in to haul away all of our garbage. It's completely full and will be taken away this week
• The front of the house was jacked up, which first required rebuilding the walls under the front porch
• The old deck surface and railing were ripped off the front porch
• Kayleigh's room was gutted down to the studs. Framing of her new walls has begun
• The linoleum floor from the upstairs kitchen was ripped out, revealing the original fir underneath

Now here's the real challenge. It's now just over seven weeks until our exchange student arrives. Before she does, here's what I want to get done:

• Finish Kayleigh's room (framing, wiring, insulation, drywall, paint)
• Finish Corbin's room, which will be Sophie's room while she's here (gut, rewire, insulate, drywall, paint)
• Finish the upstairs bathroom (finish tiling, repair window, install toilet, adapt cabinet to hold sink)
• Sand and refinish the fir floor upstairs
• Connect up the hot tub
• Rebuild front porch (new plywood deck, new railing, fibreglass deck surface)
• Adapt the front entrance door to accomodate side-lites and install
• Install new cedar siding on the front of the house

The biggest single job in there is the drywalling, especially for me. There's about 40 sheets worth of drywall to install and worse, tape. I decided to call around and see what it would cost to get it done professionally. The first person I called (the first ad in our local paper) was far more reasonable than I expected - he estimated $1600 for 1200 sq ft of drywall. Whether he's legitimate and whether he'll stick to that price when he sees the rooms remains to be seen, but at that price, we can afford to get it done professionally, which frees us up to get all of those other jobs done.