Manual Labor - Part 75 | California 2 Puerto Rico

I couldn’t come up with a good title for this post because the work didn’t really get any “construction” accomplished, it was more a lot of little things and some major manual labor to get this work done. Although it didn’t really feel like it was doing much, it really moved the house forward when we were done.

Mosquitoes be Gone! (almost)

We have been sleeping with mosquito nets every night because of the fact that downstairs was not screened in and had hundreds of tiny places for mosquitoes to sneak in. This week we framed off the giant openings on the ground floor, added big french doors (so we can still move big stuff in and out) and screened it in. It may not seem big, but it puts us that much closer to being able to hang out in our house without bug spray on.

Screened in Great Room Downstairs

The final step in getting rid of all the little pests will be to install the screens in all of the downstairs windows. I had a guy that was supposed to show up on Thursday morning, then on Friday morning but he pulled a ‘no call no show’ which is pretty typical for down here. I’ll work on him again next week.

Organized Construction Equipment

Again, this is something that doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it really makes the house feel more like a home in these final finishing stages that are going to take so long. Over the past couple of weeks we have been doing all kinds of work to the house including plumbing, framing, electrical, drywall and concrete board. Because of all of these projects we have been using many different tools and purchased a lot of supplies that have all been stored in the Great Room for ease of location. Now, having 10 different people in and out daily using tools and not having a ‘proper organized place to put them’ has created a lot of headache both in the sense of finding a specific tool and the amazing clutter that it created. We also had 8 sheets of 5/8’s treated plywood, 25 extra sheets of 4/10 fire retardant greenboard (originally 140 sheets), drywall tape and drywall mud laying all over the place.

So…I built a shelf for the tool room downstairs and we organized all of our tools into the one central location (but you have to walk up and down the ladder if you forget a tool) and moved all of the supplies in there as well. I also hung a surfboard rack and stored all of our boards.

Stacking the plywood and greenboard saved a lot of room

Not much time to surf….yet

Once the Great Room and kitchen were cleared out, it was on to priming. Here are a few pictures of the before the priming stage and after the rooms were fully primed.