So close and yet still so much to do... (pic heavy)

Or How I Spent my Summer Vacation...

Heads up, this is long and has lots of pictures

That one little open door is the entrance to where 75% of my time was spent the past week or so.

Day one Wednesday:

Well the day started out on a really really bad note, in that Mother Nature decided that 2 years of trying and 2 surgeries later, I am still not worthy enough to be expecting. So lots and lots of tears. I'm fine or at least I will be.

The rest of it was a huge blur of deciding what needed to be done to finish Operation Shop as far as county permits went, followed by my ten millionth trip to Home Depot, followed by seeing just how hard it was to hang sheet rock on a ceiling when you are

1. 5'2"
2. Severely lacking in upper body strength
3. In lots of pain due to Mother Nature's early morning punch

It wasn't as bad as it could have been since hubby did most of the lifting and I fought with the drywall screw gun.

Day 2 Thursday:

Sheetrock and more sheetrock. Sheetrock the ceiling, sheetrock the walls. Can anyone tell me why the walls couldn't be done with the board oriented vertically, rather than horizontally?

Hubby also wisely decided that hanging the sheetrock over about 1100+ square feet of space ( that includes the ceiling folks - the shop ain't that big) requires at least another person so we had help. He and the helper lifted and screwed everything into place while I cut sheetrock. The stuff is evil and there is still white dust everywhere.

Day 3 Friday:

Inspection of said sheetrock hanging. Gr. Blasted county guy throws a wrench in the plan by arguing about use space and fire protection and you name it, so we have to wait and we don't get finalled.

So we start mudding and taping the seams. After Thursday I hated sheetrock. After today I despised the mud - though it cleans up real easy.

I ran a couple of errands while we decided if we were throwing clothes in the RV and driving as fast as we could to Tuscon for Ken's reunion. Keep reading...

Then we realize we have to pick a floor. So it's off to WZ for me to pick up stone samples since the owner of said place is hanging out at my place today using my driveway to do something or other related to stone. Ask hubby if you care for details. lol

Anyway we only finished mudding and taping one room, before I boycotted and collapsed into a chair.

Day 4 Saturday:

In an attempt to save his marriage ( and he quite possibly succeeded ;-) ), my hubby utilized Craigslist to find professional help in the mudding and taping of said walls.

So I got to start playing with paint samples (since we picked the stone for the floor) and had yet another trip to Home Depot while our new friend John played with mud and tape and trowels.

Back home to create said paint samples so we could pick a color. We decided to go with the Bellagio Faux Technique from Behr, even though it means there will be a ton of paint on the walls.

Wanna see what we picked?

The one with the fan will be the main office space color. That is Sunporch base with Italian Opera TopCoat and Luxurious villa Top coat.

The other one will be the tech area.

That is Clamshell base with Amalfi Fantasy Topcoat and Sunset Riviera Top coat (see the theme yet?)

Day 5 - Sunday:

We have to have the walls ready for the top coat of mud. What kind of texture do we want? Yes I'm still playing with paint samples trying to get everything right.

Our guy John finishes at noon and heads on home while I fight with paint. He comes back later with a sheetrock sample that he's put 4 different textures on to help us decide. Does this guy love his work or what? So hubby says, paint the sheet rock sample and then we'll decided. So that's what you see in the pics above, one side in one color set, one in the other, we chose both.

Day 6 - Monday

We have to finish electrical today. Period. Because tonight we call for our final inspection. We also have to have the mud finished so we can start painting tomorrow.

Which means ANOTHER trip to Home Depot (I am so sick of that place) for more mud and a ton of paint. The lady behind me in line wasn't too happy since I ordered 9 cans of tinted stuff. She should have perhaps stopped letting her cart run into me and I would have been more inclined to let her go in front of me.

Our friend Nathan and his gf Tina came over to help. I asked her to tackle the outside trim while I ran errands and Nathan helped hubby start the office panel inventory so we know if we have enough stuff to set up our cubicles in the new space.

Then I'm back and after a quick run to the grocery store (we're having tri tip!) it's up in the attic rafters to pull the electrical wires done the rafter to the sub-panel box so we actually have lights and electricity out there.

There has to be an easier way to lose a couple of pounds rather than baking in 10' high attic rafters in 90+ weather. Did you know that your knees could sweat?

Got eletrical pulled and started the grill. Tri tip really is just so good.

Spent the rest of the evening putting on faceplates and outlets and switch.

Call for final. Eep

Day 7 - Tuesday:

Last day of vacation for me. Hubby is hooking wires up to the subpanel. I'm buying faceplates and more breakers. Inspector shows up early. Sigh.

Missed it by that much. Wouldn't sign off with the panel hot and not finished. Said he'd come back at the end of the day.

Scrubbed the floor (all that dust and mud), finish the electrical, remove all the faceplates. Start taping for the priming job. Find out we can get 500+ square feet of stone for the floor super cheap if I go and take a look at it and okay everything.

Inspector comes back and signs off on the shop. Woo hoo! No more county. The permit is closed, no more inspections. It's ours to do as we please.

Back to WZ again to fight with pallets of stone and track down a guy to actually install the floor. Back home with 6000 lbs of stone - did I mention I have a really big truck? - and the installer guy and floor starts to go in.

You better ooh and ahh over that door. It caused endless fits picking it out.

Hubby primed the space with the paint sprayer while I was at WZ. I simply came home and finished up any spots he missed while they started playing with all that stone.

500 square feet of stone is a lot of stone.

Look at all that, and that's only two of the pallets worth.

We spent the rest of evening doing clean up and finishing the Herman Miller inventory and laying out all the panels and how everything look in the new space. It's gonna be gorgeous.

Addendum:

Saturday the light of my life was kind enough to realize that if I didn't get an outing that didn't involve, dust, dirt, mud, paint, stone or landscape yards I was going to hurt somebody.

So I got to go up to Windsor to the Knit group at the LYS and I finally got to prove to Rosemary that I really do exist ::vbg::

Where I worked on this.

It's a hat in RYC Cashsoft Aran in dark grey with some very subtle color work in a lighter more steel grey color. Gotta love a yarn diet if for no other reason than it forces you to go through your stash and remember the cool stuff you have and what it was for.

More on Operation Shop tomorrow. While we aren't finished, we are making progress. One ceiling got painted last night. Can you guess what color?