Monthly Archives: November 2013

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We have walls!

IMG_4400 I was in Chicago all last week and could not WAIT to see the house with drywall on the walls! I was not disappointed – in one week the house has gone from looking like a disaster to looking like a real house! Even James was amazed and said, “This house is beautiful!”. Which is a long way from the early days when he refused to even go in the house because it was, “yucky and stinky”.

The gas and water have been turned on so we can run the heat for the drywall mud to dry. Unfortunately, drywall goes up in a few days, but the mudding and sanding are where the real time is spent. This gives me time to get my paint colors picked out, so I am all ready to paint when the drywall is finished. Next weekend is our family Thanksgiving, and my children who live out of town will be home, so I will get my daughter Hope to help me with paint colors. I made this offer to my oldest daughter too and got a lukewarm response. If she didn’t look just like me I might think she had been switched at birth, because what could be more fun than choosing paint colors??

Here is the same section of wall before, during and after:

living room

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One of the biggest surprises that came with the drywall is that when the morning sun comes in the kitchen window, the old stained glass makes a beautiful pattern on the walls. You can’t tell in this picture, but the light makes rainbows on the wall – amazing.
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Drywall…..in the HOUSE!

IMG_4383The building inspector scribbled his signature at the bottom of the paper and then held it up for me to see. “You are cleared to drywall,” he said, and then broke into a smile. “How long have you been waiting to hear those words?” I laughed, “Since the day we bought the house.”

Ok, so when I write the novel of the renovation (which will never happen), that’s how the scene will go. Which actually is how it all went down – our building inspector has quite the sense of humor! Those words were probably some of the happiest words I have had said to me since the project began, since drywall marks us starting to put the house back together, rather than tearing it apart. My house is full of drywall stacked against the walls waiting for Monday when it can actually be put up. I would be at the house every day this week checking on the progress, but of course this momentous week falls when I have to go to Chicago for 4 days to present at a conference. Luckily, my Amish contractor is very good at texting me pictures.

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Our insulation is finished and we went to check the work, and James (age 5), who has been very against moving to the “scary, old house” is actually seeing that the house may come together and look good at some point. Quite a relief to me, since he has been very opposed to us moving there.

In other news, you may remember Russel Downey, the young man who received the letters from the wanton strumpet Gertrude in 1914. I have been in correspondence with his great-grandson, who emailed me to tell me he had traced his family geneology back to Martin Luther. THE Martin Luther, as in founder of the Lutheran church. (I did have a rather confusing conversation with my husband who thought I told him he had traced his geneology back to Martin Luther King….) So now I own a house that was owned by direct descendants of Martin Luther – I feel like I should nail a manifesto to the front door. In my case it would most likely be a grant report or an annual fund letter….I will leave you with a quote by Martin Luther that I find particularly applicable to this house reno, “Everything in the world is done by hope.” IMG_4384

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