Tuesday, June 28, 2011

To the Walls

If you now have Lil Jon's smash hit in your head...you are welcome.

We are back to our Kitchen re-do. After we had removed the tile backsplash in the kitchen we realized that the drywall that was behind the tiles was not salvageable. In order to get the tiles off, much of the drywall came with it. We went back and forth on installing a new tile backsplash or replacing the drywall and painting it. We ended up liking the look of a 4” granite backsplash that extended upward from the countertops. Once we realized that we could not paint over the damaged drywall we figured brand-new drywall needeed to be installed. While we do enjoy DIY projects and saving money by doing our own labor, this was something we would not be able to tackle on our own. We enlisted the help of our friend “Craig” to find a contractor who would remove the damaged drywall and install the new drywall for us. The contractor told us he would reduce the price if we bought our own drywall and had it on site when he arrived. So of course since he said the magic words “reduce the price” we did just that.
I watch a LOT of HGTV and I am pretty good at picking up some of the tricks of the trade. So when it came time to pick up the drywall I made the comment “they always use 5/8” fireproof drywall on TV” so we picked some up and when it did not fit into our SUV with the seats down we had some guy help us tie it to the roof. After driving home slowly we were happy to have all pieces intact.

As soon as the contractor arrived he was quick to inform us that the drywall we had purchased was too thick. So while I stayed home with the Contractor, HB went back the hardware store to exchange the drywall and bring home the 1/2" drywall. For a trip that should only take 20 minutes, HB was still not back after 30 minutes…that’s because after he purchased round 2 and tied them onto the roof himself they flew off while he was driving home. Yep, we were “those people”. Finally an hour later and two trips to the store, HB arrived home and the contractors got to work.

It only took the contractor 2 hours to remove the old drywall and install/mud the new drywall. Once we had our drywall up and running we painted away and were ready for our new countertops.




Couldn't resist an action shot of HB painting




LESSONS LEARNED:
· Communicate with your contractor if you are not sure what materials you need to buy
· Let people at the hardware store help you tie on items that are too big to fit inside the car
· Sometimes it might save a lot of time/effort to let the contractor bring the materials instead of you providing them – but by providing materials you could save money. It’s just one of those decisions.
· If you let contractors move appliances on your newly re-finished floors you should protect the floors - clearly this is something I wish I would have done

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