Insulation was installed on Wednesday. Wow, what a difference! It’s quiet, and the temperature in the house is much more stable. (Not so cold in the morning nor hot in the afternoon.) I thought they were only going to do the walls at this time, so I didn’t prep the ceiling and left some attic/ceiling wiring work undone. But when I got home that night, I found that all the “open” ceiling (i.e. bare joists without drywall) had batting insulation installed. Rats! That made it even more difficult for me to finish the wiring that night. 
The drywall started going up yesterday morning. Artisan Drywall is our sub, and they’ve been outstanding! Ron (the owner) and one of his guys even came out and helped us finish clearing out much of the house in order to keep the project on schedule. Ron hired out a separate company to hang the drywall, and they made quite a bit of progress yesterday. They were back pretty early this morning, and they should be finished putting up our walls early this afternoon. (Ceilings were already finished yesterday.) Ron and his crew will be in next week to tape and texture the drywall.
I had to straighten up two studs in our one-and-only hallway, (one on each side of the hall), because they were bowed enough that the drywall would crack if they tried to attach to those walls. One side of the hallway is merely a partition wall, (not load-bearing), so I was able to correct that one pretty easily by making about 5 cuts with a circular saw to bowed-out side of the stud. (A picture or diagram would be very handy here…) This relaxed the stud enough that we were able to push it into alignment with its neighbors, and the drywall guys screwed a sheet of drywall to the back side of the stud to hold it in place. (Took maybe five minutes to fix.) Of course the other stud was on an exterior, load-bearing wall, so I had to plane down the high spot and put some drywall shims in a few places. I did manage to fix this wall, but it took the better part of an hour fiddling with the power planer, a 4′ straightedge, and many drywall shims. Added bonus: a huge mess of wood shavings from the planer stuck to the wall insulation and sprinkled all over the floor!
Our plumber came out yesterday afternoon to connect the gas line for the new furnace. He’s doing us a big favor to pull this off on short notice, so I stayed out there and helped him. I was amazed at how easy he made it look, but like any skilled trade I imagine it’s all about the know-how and proper tools.
I got power up to the FAU late last night, and the HVAC contractor was out this morning to fire up the furnace. We have heat! We’ll have to turn it off while the drywallers are sanding, but we’re pretty much climate-controlled at this point. After 2½ years without central heat, it’ll be a huge improvement!
On the “even more good news” front: I just spoke with our cabinet maker and let him know that the drywallers would probably be finished by next Friday, and I asked if he would be ready to install our cabinets on the following Monday. He responded, “Yeah, but would you guys be okay with me coming in on Saturday instead?” Heck, yes!
On the downside, Barb and I gave up on hosting Thanksgiving this year. There’s no way the floors will be finished in time, and we don’t really want our 10-month-old nephew crawling around on the unfinished floor. So once the addition is complete we’re going to host a post-Thanksgiving dinner–all the same food, and hopefully all the same people, that we would be having for the real turkey day.
One more minor problem: we lost our Internet connection again yesterday, but I’ll probably be able to get that working again over the weekend. And hopefully we’ll have more time for pictures (and blogging!) now that the bulk of the remodeling work is behind us.
Aside from a few minor glitches, it feels like we’ve finally crested the hill that is our addition/remodeling project. Looks like Barb and I will even have a chance to sit around and enjoy a glass of wine some time this weekend.
