The Utility Room Gets a Facelift

Zita decided that we needed to go ahead and get a washer and dryer at the Denton house. At first, we thought it might be alright to just put them in the utility room for now until we did the remodel work on the existing house.

On closer inspection, I decided I really needed to go ahead and remodel the utility room before we put anything in it. I could tell that the walls had gotten wet at some point and there had just been cheap paneling nailed over the old sheet rock.

So, I set to work.

Below are pictures of the process, from tearing out the old sheet rock and insulation to re-insulating, installing the green board sheet rock (designed for damp areas like bathrooms and utility rooms), tape and plastering the new sheet rock seems, sanding the seems, and then painting it all, and a picture of the completed utility room.

Framing Up the New Addition

With the lumber schlepped around to the back yard, the framing began. There were several challenges with framing up the new structure and joining it cleanly to the existing house while making it all look like the new addition was built at the same time as the original house.

Our carpenter (Nathan) did a great job of pulling it all together. He is an interesting guy with a rather rough and colorful history (and loves colorful language), but he has great carpentry skills. He had a rough time keeping helpers. He fired two different helpers during the course of our construction and ended up doing a lot of the final work alone or with a couple helpers that TriStar (our general contractor) provided.

Below are a few pictures of the framing as it progressed.

The Lumber Arrives

Lumber being dropped off in the front yard.

Once the concrete had been poured and cured for a couple days, we were ready to start framing up the structure.

Bright and early one morning, a semi pulled up in front of the house and dropped off a little load of lumber. The carpenter (Nathan) and his helper arrived shortly after and they began carrying the lumber into the back yard.

Part of the lumber that has been carried to the back yard.