Workcation - Day 4!

Friday

This day was devoted to texturing! The night before I had put the plastic up in the dining room in hopes of keeping some of the crazy mess at bay. With the fans running to dry the mud it was quite funny. I felt like we were living in a circus tent!

The first thing Michael did was mix up the mud and then started texturing. The funniest thing about this whole texturing thing is how much time you have to work mudding the walls and making sure they are nice and smooth and then you mix up the mud, put it in a hopper, attach it to the air compressor and then basically have it sneeze blobs all over the wall you just made nice and smooth.

It sure gives the walls a nice finish though!

This part actually went super fast....I think Michael was finished at 10:30am. Even he was stunned! 

After texture was on we had to wait for it to dry of course. I honestly can't remember what we did. I think I remember driving to Lowe's and Michael asking me what day it was and saying it was Friday. We had gotten a big tub of something to lay the backing board on the floors, but it was the wrong stuff so we needed to return it and get the right kind of mortar. 

At the end of this I'm going to count all my Lowe's receipts so I will know how many trips I really made during this whole remodel. I'm sure it's an obscene amount of times! 

Once the texture dried Michael was able to get a coat of primer on the walls. 

For Ella's room I put up plastic to keep the texture from going everywhere, but I forgot to put paper down on the carpet. Oops! Thankfully once texture dries you can clean it up pretty easily. 

Michael didn't notice the lack of paper in time when he was doing Ella's room, but he did notice it in our room so he laid some down to protect the carpet. 

Yay for no more door to Ella's room and not being kept awake at night when she's sick and coughing!

Once the primer was dry we were able to get into the bathroom and start laying out the backing board for the tiles. Michael had to measure out the bathroom in grinds....we use a chalk line to help with that. Then we cut each of the pieces. This stuff is a lot like drywall, but thinner and stronger. Cutting it was a pain. Michael jigsaw came in handy, but we had a heck of time getting it to hold onto the blade. During this remodel he burned out two drills so we had to go buy a new one and I'm thinking his jigsaw is on the way out as well. After the pieces were cut I numbered them and then we started fitting them into place. 

We dry fit them into place to make sure they would fit and made adjustments that were needed. 

Then it was time for the tile mortar to be put on to hold the backing boards into place. This mortar stuff is hardcore. Michael had to mix it in the bucket for 5 minutes...which feels like an eternity when you are having to hold the drill with all your might and keep it from getting away from you. Then we had to let it sit for 5 minutes and then mix for 2 more minutes. After setting the backing board onto the mortar it was time for screws....lots of special screws. I tried to put them in for Michael, but they were so tough to screw in. Poor Michael's hands were just shot by this time. Cutting drywall, applying mud, sanding mud, texturing, painting, cutting backing board, applying mortar...all of it had taken it's toll. I felt so bad that I didn't have the strength to help. As for my hand it didn't really slow me down at all. I had to be creative when it came to gripping things, but honestly I was able to function pretty normally. Once I popped the blisters and cut the skin off I just put Neosporin on them, bandaged them up and put gloves on. There was no way I wasn't going to be in the thick of this remodel due to a burned hand!