The Remodel, Day 5

I have no idea what we did today, but Zorak assures me we made good progress.

The highlight of the day was when Zorak kicked through the wall adjoining the bathroom to the front bedroom. It was down to sheet rock when he got this gleam in his eye. He asked if I thought it would traumatize the boys too much if he jumped through the wall. Nah. We've done worse to them.

So we called them in to "come watch this wall, boys!" They stood by the back closet with me, watching the wall, when suddenly the drywall (long story, long, weird story about drywall even being in that room) flew from the wall and there was Daddy!! At first, Smidge didn't know what to think, but when he saw that the boys were awed and Mommy was laughing and clapping, he laughed. He still pointed to the wall and said, "Hey! HEY!" but he thought it was neat. If weird. James and John thought it was "sooooo cool!" They went on for quite a while about how Daddy is just like a Super Hero, and wow, they didn't know he was so strong! And of course, could they try it, too? SURE! Give it a shot! So three little boys went traipsing around the corner to give it the ol' heave-ho. Zorak lent a little hand and they managed to push down another piece of drywall, then bounded off feeling pretty darned impressive, if they did say so, themselves.

On the rest of it, we gutted The War Room (the front bedroom, which we plan to use as a base of operations, AKA "War Room", for the tactical planning aspect of the project) - ripped out the adjacent to the bathrooms wall, lost about an hour saying, "Ewwwww!" All of the plumbing aside from the kitchen has been removed, and we got a leg up on the subfloor in the hallway.

We determined that the interior walls that we want to move or remove are not attached to more than one ceiling joist (happy day!) Zorak removed what can only be described as a plethora of stuff from the Yucky Room in the basement and identified THE source of THE water in the basement (more happiness). He also discovered that our bath, the master bath, has no. floor. under. the shower. More "ewww" followed that discovery.

Just a tip for would-be DIY'ers. MDF (medium-density fiberboard) is not a good underlayment. It will soak up water like the wood-based sponge that it is. Wet MDF has the consistency of used coffee grounds. This is disgusting. While MDF is a wonderful product for Christopher Lowell Fans and decoupage projects, it makes a poor choice for underlayment. Plastic sheeting under the MDF will not, in fact, make it waterproof. And nailing the stuff down every two inches will not do the trick, either. Just. Don't. Do. That.

Where the subfloor hadn't reverted back to its free-particle state, the two-inch nailing pattern made it harder to get up than it would be to lift Michael Clark Duncan using a spatula. Lovely. Tonight, for the first time since we've begun this project, I am really sore.

There was more - slingshots, spiders, gravel, and BBQ. It was another good day, and now that Zorak has helped me list it all out, it wasn't too bad on the productivity scale, either. The boys and I are going to have a Normal Day on Monday - we're going to snack on the couch and read books all day in our sweats. We're all looking forward to that.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy