of a mudroom.

Let me just say right up front that this project is cursed and has been since the idea first came to us 3 years ago. It’s taken us those 3 years to get started on it because every time we save up almost enough money to buy everything the Universe would cause some unexpected expense to come out of nowhere and use up the funds. So we switched to buying small amounts of supplies a bit at a time, when the Universe wasn’t looking. We bought the windows a year ago from a junk yard & found the roofing 17 months ago on Craigslist. We’ve bought the sheathing a piece at a time in random Lowe’s visits and salvaged the Tyvek wrap from the leftovers of a friend’s garage build.

You could call this a ‘new to us’ mudroom project.

The studs had to be bought new and so did the doors & we’d planed to use the tax refund money for it. However, after we bought the studs but before we bought the doors I broke a tooth and had to pay slightly more than our mortgage payment to get it fixed, which ate up the door money plus lots of other money.

But I was sick of the endless days of waiting and cursed the curse. I’ve been saving for 2 years to buy a new camera (either a Nikon D3100 or D5100) and still was about $200 short because of those pesky unexpected expenses and I decided enough was enough. The doors we wanted were on sale at Lowes right now, a savings of $120, so now I am $400 short for the camera but we had everything we needed for the mud room.

But curses cannot be broken just because you’ve decided to suck it up and throw money at them.

Last Sunday DH & I began nailing the framing together for the windows

Monday DH had to work late because he was taking Tues & Wed off to work on the mudroom.

Tuesday morning we laid out the wall of window frames and worked out where the bottom plates would be bolted into the concrete.

But we didn’t have the drill bit to drill the holes in the concrete for the bolts so we had to go into Lowes for it & some glue or other that helps hold the bolts in place. Right as the last bolt was screwed into place it started to rain

Wednesday, it was still raining and I had a very long doc appointment so DH decided to put up the smaller side walls, which he could do alone. One of those walls had to go under the soffits, right where a light was, so part of the soffit had to be torn out and the light relocated and then some bracing put in so the wall could be nailed into it. Nothing about this house is level, or plumb, or square, so something that ought to have taken maybe an hour took the whole freaking day.

After supper DH & Havoc nailed the wall of window frames together.

This photo is from Thursday when it didn’t rain but nothing got done because DH was back at work and all hell was breaking loose there so he didn’t get home until well after dark.

Ditto on Friday.

Saturday morning DH nailed the cripple studs & top & bottom plates into the wall of window frames & we stood it up.

We got the front & side walls nailed together & then the wind picked up. The forecast was for rain in the afternoon & Havoc had a baseball game a half hour away at 1pm. So DH nailed a few trusses across the top & covered it with some plastic to provide what shelter it could

It didn’t rain during the game, which was good. Havoc’s team won 7-1. But it did start seriously raining about 20 minutes after we got home & the problems at work from Thurs & Fri had never really resolved and came back with a vengeance resulting in DH spending about 2 hours on the phone followed by a 5 hour round trip night time drive to an out of the way tower with no power & ended with a visit to the sheriff’s office to enquire about a No Trespassing sign that might or might not be legal.

Know what is entertaining? Getting a phone call at 11:30 at night from your husband, nearly an hour after you expected him home, saying that he is in the sheriff’s office. I told him to call his boss if he needed bail because I was not waking the kids up and driving 2 hours to get him. I’d told him to do that before he even left on the errand. Fortunately no one was under arrest & sorting out the legalities of signs was someone else’s problem & he got home at 1:30am

It rained all day Sunday & in between that & calls with his boss & assorted research on the internet, only a bit of sheathing was put up. Just on the sides mudroom.

This allowed us to see that really, we needed to have gotten a 7th window, so we’d have an extra one for that side wall. It is so weird not being able to see who/what is in the driveway. Maybe we’ll get used it or maybe I’ll be $500 short for that camera from custom ordering a $100 window to match the junk yard ones (6 for $75!).

So here we are, 8 days into a 3 day project and only about halfway done. It’s supposed to rain here for 3 more days and the assorted tower/trespassing/power issues at work will no doubt take at least that long to sort out.

The header board on the front wall still needs to be put in, the current roof trusses need to be removed and then put back after the header board is in. The front wall needs it’s sheathing, and the windows, doors and roof all need to be installed, then the temporary siding installed (eventually it will be brick to match the house but for now it’s the same trim as the roofline) & then everything from the red roofline to the mud room exterior walls needs to be painted.

So maybe we are only a third of the way done.

My actual Week in the Life Project starts today. It would be really nice if I could end it on Sunday with a shot of the completed (but ok, maybe not painted) mudroom.

Here’s hoping anyway.