Michael’s Room

Although it has been slow-goins’ and to tell you the truth there’s still some work to be done; I have to admit we are coming along rather well.  We have the border left to do, curtains, painting of the trim, and I need to sand the closet in the Bun Room (aka the Computer Room), but I am happy to announce that as of last Saturday I successfully (well, if you can call it that) put a small wall up between the closet in Michael’s room and the Bun Room.  It’s hard to explain but the way this house was built, two of the rooms shard a common closet space…

(here’s a small diagram)

Fig 1

(Bun Room)

———-|         |———-

Closet  (2ft)

-|          |———–

Michael’s Room

Which normally would be fine, except we have a total of 4 cats, 1 dog, and 3 rabbits that can easily get from the Bun Room to Michael’s Room-so we needed to close it off.  Here’s a recap of my experience as well as a few things I learned in from the process.

 

Things learned….

1. With this house, 2ft (24inches) isn’t 24in–it’s 23 3/4 inches or 23 5/8 inches or it’s 23 1/2 inches (depending on where in the closet you are measuring–this house isn’t square or exact by any means. (And for Dad and Dave, yes I took multiple measurements and tried to cut as straight as possible taking into account the width of the circular saw blade.

2. Don’t forget to remove or trim around molding.

3. 2X4’s aren’t really 2 inches by 4inches…there 1 1/2 inches by 3 and 1/2 (maybe a little less or a little more.)

4. Measure twice and cut once, and then cut once again, and then once again and one more time….and wait now one more time….

5. Hammers make great tools for “squeezing” frames into place.

6.  Take the time you think it will take you to finish the job; then add 4 this is the approximate time it will take you to finish half of the job–for me I figure since I had 4 cuts for the 2X4 frame, 2 to 4 cuts with the drywall and some hammering I figure 2 hours maybe 3.  So 2 hours plus 4 equals 6. I started at about 11:30-12ish and was just starting to put on drywall compound at 7:45–granted that included about a 45 minute or so supply run and maybe a 50 minute lunch break which if we subtract 2 hours from 7:45 we are still at about 6 hours.  Granted this is just me and this is probably one my more advance D-I-Y jobs…and I have little to know experience with Drywall or framing.

7. 2 1/2 inch framing nails are about an 1 inch too short (but if I would have built the frame different I could have eliminated that problem.)

8.  2 paint cans, a piece of scrap wood and the 5 lb bucket of joint compound make great saw horses…

9.   Shelves are a complex task disguised as a simple job.

10.  Safety glasses, ear plugs, and breathing masks should be worn.

11. When using a circular saw (especially inside) make sure the blade has stopped spinning or that that guard is up when setting the tool down…I didn’t make an additional cuts in to my hard wood flooring –it wouldn’t have mattered anyway–but I saw the potential danger of the spinning blade every time I set it down.

Okay now for the Pictorial Recap…

Okay, so I had the lumber in the room and the dry wall…here’s how I planned to make the “wall”  I had three 10′ 2X4 and one 8′ x 4′ sheet of drywall (or sheet rock) I was going to make a 8′ 1″ by a 2′ wall to divide the one closet into two.  The width was actually 23 3/4″ and the height of the ceiling was closer to 8′ 1/2 inches (give or take a few 16th of an inch).  I decided to go with three vertical studs (the middle one being about 12 inches center) and the horizontal pieces laying on the top and the bottom of the vertical (see photos below).  This way I had enough vertical play with the three 2X4’s and used most of the “scrap” for the top and bottom horizontal pieces (I call them cross pieces, but I am sure that’s wrong.  Here is the bottom….

 

As you can see photo left) this is after I had measured and for the most part successfully hammered the frame together and then “squeezed” it into place with several “light” taps of my hammer.  You see, I am really not good with measuring (or at least I don’t feel that i am good) so I tend to measure several times and that can be sort of tedious.  Also–most of the supplies were bought from a gift card given to us by a dear friend so I sort of had one shot of this and didn’t want to mess it up so I am sure I might have been a bit “over” careful here, but I think it paid off…if the house had been built better and if i was a bit more (okay, a lot more) experience with reading a tape measure I could have made few cuts and got the frame in quicker and will less “taps”, but like I said this is a learning experiences.

Next the drywall….I think the best lesson learned here is work with smaller sections.  Now, I can see if I was doing a whole wall or a new addition that wouldn’t make sense, but this was only 8 feet tall by 2 feet wide and on top of that it’s in a close that most people won’t see…so I could and should have (for the Michael’s side of the closet) cut the dry wall into two 4′x2′ sections and then used joint compound and tape.  Also I should have made it a bit smaller than 23 5/8″ because I did a lot of “tapping” to get the one 8′ by 2′ which led to a lot of breaking at the top, bottom and the left side…I got it in, but let’s just say a “tight fit” is really an understatement.

Here is a picture of the drywall on Michael’s room (point of view is from the Bun’s Room side)  This is the one 8′ x 2′ sheet… you can see the mess at the bottom from the picture below.

 

 

 

 

 

Which I think had been some what swept up….here’s a picture of the ceiling from the closet on Michael’s side…you can see that in the left corner the dry wall staring to break….

Here’s another thing I learned about drywall…if you are cutting it or scoring it with a utility knife make sure it goes though most of the way or that you have the other have of your sheet supported rather well…when I tried to break on my score line I almost broke the other sheet in half.  That break and the trouble I had with the first sheet prompted me to cut the second sheet in have and to shave a good 1/2 inch off the width to make sure it would fit nicely…here are the pictures…

If you look closely at this top half of the wall…you can faintly see a “rip/break” line….I started at the left and nailed one nail above it and one below it on the three studs…you can also look at the right sided and see where the paper is been torn off and just follow that up and to the left…

 

 

 

  Here’s the joint which I later applied compound on it and then used tape with more compound.  This is on the Bun’s Room Side of the closet…which at the time of this writing is still not sanding smooth.  There is a decent reason for it…The Bun Room is called the Bun Room because it house my (well, our) three rabbits,…Max, Rupert and Puffy and my White-fronted Amazon Parrot, Buddy.  I don’t think drywall dust is really good for them to breathe in…so once we get other stuff finished we wll remove the animals and sand down the closet and clean up and then bring them back…but we will work on the border first…

Back to the recap….

So after i got the dry wall in place, made another trip to Wal Mart and Rural King for drywall supplies and “doped” the corned and the one joint it was time to let it dry…by now it was close to 9:30 if not later…and I started cleaning up…well there was a problem..all the clothes and the baby stuff was in our room on our bed and the couch we have isn’t the most comfortable for a 7 (almost 8 month pregnant) lady….so after the compound dried…I sanded down Michael’s side and started making cuts for shelving..that I will admit I was a bit sloppy on, but it was also 1 am by this time (after waiting for the joint compound to dry and sanding it down plus cleaning up the mess of dust and saw dust already made) so then I just made my cuts on the board they were using for the shelf in the first place along with the doll rod and then used an extra set of closet rod cups to hold the doll in place and nailed everything in.  Then Missy (now awake after a two hour nap) helped me get the clothes back into the closets and the baby stuff back into Michael’s room and then I took a shower and went to bed (probably around 2ish or so) and had to get up to go back to work at Wal Mart at 7am–so needless to say I was a bit tired.  But I felt good that I had made progress on the room and that was finally coming along.

A New Addition to the Crawford Clan

(This was originally posted on my other blog, but it is truely the start of “Our Baby”

One, for those who don’t know already, my girlfriend Missy and I are going to have a baby. We found about about two weeks ago and finally were able to get into the doctor’s office, an ultrasound, and a general check up. I am happy to report that she is three months along and that gives the baby a due date of May 16th…give or take a few days. This is an exciting, but terrifying shock saying Missy believed she wasn’t able to even get pregnant. Here’s the story of how we came to know the baby’s existence.

So back about the end Septemeber, my girlfriend, Melissa (Missy) asked me to marry her–and of course I said yes. I was however a little worried about the timing (we had only been dating about two months) so I asked her if we could hold off until Decemeber before we announce it to everyone (everyone mainly being my parents; we all know how parents can be) and since I had just broken up with my last girlfriend in June, I didn’t want my parents to fret. So we agreed that we would wait until December and we would plan for a June (2008) wedding, the 22nd to be exact.

Well, in October, Missy went to Texas for her brother’s graduation from the air force and due to her stomach feeling tight as well as other symptoms she decided to take a pregnancy test. Well, the first test came back positive so she told me–it was Sunday, Oct 21st and we deicded to take another test that night after I returned from working my second job. Again, it was positive. So that Wednesday, we went to the WIC office, and had a third test, again it was positive. So that part was clear, we were pregnant-however we didn’t know how far along she was. Missy didn’t have the most regular cycle and let’s just say her “little friend’s” last visit was in January. So after we finished our paperwork for Medicaid, the search for a doctor was on. That was an ordeal and a half.

As the search for the doctor continued (especially while we were waiting for her medicaid to kick in, there was the issue of telling my parents, not only of the pregnancy, but the wedding. They, along with my older brother David, his wife Melissa, and their daughter Amelia, live in Idaho and hadn’t even met Missy yet. Needless to say I was a little stress about telling them, and finally decided to tell them on Monday of this past week. That way I would at least have one less thing to stress about.

Well, once we got active status, we were able (well, she was able to able to find a doctor–two weeks later. But were still unable to make an appt.

So we finally decided, due to back and side pain that she was experiencing we decided to go to the PromptMed affilated with St. Francis. We were finally able to get an ultrasound and determind that she was 3 months along and were also able to score a picture from the ultra sound (see down below).

(Baby’s first Picture)

So needless to say the wedding has been pushed back until the baby is due-with me working two jobs, going back to school, and us having to prepare for the baby, we both thought it best to hold off on the wedding.

From Then Till Now

Since I, like my wife, tend to put off stuff and since I am a bit busy with my two jobs and getting ready for the baby,
I obviously haven’t kept up with the blogging about the pregnancy and
any major updates, so I am going to do a transition post that shows
some pictures of her belly, updates about doctor’s visits, the other
ultrasounds pictures including the 3d/4d ultrasound including the video ,which is also on my other blog-My Life. My Words, so here goes

November 1st – 12 weeks (about 3 months)

This was literally about 3-4 weeks after we found out we were pregnant. As the early post states, we didn’t even know we were pregnant until late October. That Saturday we had Gyspy Moon Ball and had a good time. We officially told everyone (we had already told most of the contra people) but that weekend we also mentioned about getting married.

Here’s the first ultra sound pictures that we got (we weren’t supposed to get one but they gave it to us anyway)

December 2007 – Missy and I went to the Thacker’s Family Reunion (Michael, wanted to let you know that you were will be born into a really big family. Missy and I have great Christmas. She is getting bigger but it’s still not as noticeable-and Missy can feel light movement.

For Michael–you are between 16-17 weeks. Your Mother is convinced that you are girl, I had a feeling that since she was so convinced that you might be a boy…guess who was right?

January 16th – 22 weeks We finally know what you are! We had a doctor’s visit on the 15th and he wanted us to have an ultrasound – so we scheduled on for the next day and found out what we were having! It’s going to be a boy!

February 16th- Missy is approaching her 26th week–she is starting to get big and we can both feel movement now, although Michael seems to stop moving when I put my hand on her belly. We have decided to get the 3d/4d ultra sound down and are making some progress on the baby’s room.

March 11th–30 weeks and 3 days! We just over two months to go and it still hasn’t completely set in…we had the 3d/4d ultrasound down today….here are the pictures.

This is the first “real” picture– the one where we get to see what our little boy looks like (and yes, that does sound weird to say that) but it’s slowly starting to sink in…Missy and I are going to be parents in just under 9 weeks….

Please check out the pages that contain the video of the ultrasound as well as all the 3d/4d ultra sound pics…