so as i mentioned last week, i spent my (gorgeous, sunny, HOT) weekend in the basement attempting to tackle the mountain-o-junk, our disorganized office area, and its less-than-functional closet. i made progress on all of those things, but none of them are quite done yet. because in order to truly finish any one of those projects, we had to take care of the elephant in the room: the moldy corner.
this corner of our basement got wet last fall during the hurricane. it was the only part of our basement that got wet, and we were happy to ignore it for a while. but this past weekend, i decided that it was high time we got around to fixing that, since it needed to be done if we wanted to paint the office. the hubs helped me with the icky demo parts on Friday night, but since he already had plans to be super busy all day Saturday working in the master bathroom, the rebuilding part of this project was going to be all me.
this is what i learned from my first solo foray into drywall.
1. defective downspouts are never a good idea. this is especially true during a hurricane.
2. water in the basement + drywall = wet moldy mess.
4. dehumidifiers are da bomb-diggity. extra bonus points if they came with your house for free and have saved your basement multiple times in the past few weeks.
5. cutting drywall down to size is empowering and awesome. dont be embarrased to jump up and down and squeal with delight after you make your first cut.
6. don't get too cocky about your beautiful drywall installation. chances are, you forget to replace the insulation first and now you have to take it all back apart and start over.
7. always cut insulation from the kraft paper side. its easier and much less itchy. (and when your husband tells you this, just pretend that you knew that all along... you just like a challenge.)
8. you can push as hard as you want, but that screw is not going anywhere if your drill is set in reverse.
9a. your husband may tell you that taping and spackle-ing is simple and easy and that you'll have no problem with it...
9b. your husband is a liar. as soon as you proudly show him your handiwork, he will tear it all apart and tell you to try again tomorrow. to his credit, he will also apologize, which actually does help a little considering he just smashed all your drywalling hopes and dreams against the rocky shores of reality.
10. if at first you don't succeed... just get your husband to do it.
still on my office/basement to-do list:
- finish spackling/sanding the corner.
- paint.
- install baseboard?
- get a new desk.
- move the futon into the office.
- put some boxes in the attic.
- figure out what to do with the zillion CDs we own.
2 comments:
If you ever write a relationship book--and, more importantly, if Steph ever reads your relationship book--I'm not sure how I feel about #s 9b and 10.
Though 9b is totally true.
in my defense on #10, he offered to fix it... so i let him. everybody wins :)
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