Welcome to the Dust Bowl

This weekend was all about the drywall.  Or, more specifically, the drywall in the three extra bedrooms.  I mentioned last week that we had some issues with the walls in a couple of the bedrooms.  The previous owners had patched some nail holes using Drywall Mud, but they failed to sand down the patches before painting.  And it was a mess.  Unfortunately, it didn't photograph well, but you can take my word for it.  There were approximately 1 million places that had to be sanded down, re-patched, and sanded again.

Not the worst wall, but the one where you could see the spots the best.

Landon and I had started on the work earlier in the week using hand sanders and sanding screen, but after working for almost 2 hours and finishing only about 1/2 of one wall, we decided we needed a better method.  So Saturday we rented a power drywall sander from Home Depot.  And it was wonderful.  (It was also bigger than I thought it would be and heavy.)  So Landon's Mom and I spent Saturday sanding down the walls in all three bedrooms using an orbital sander and the power drywall sander while the boys worked on putting in overhead lights in the bedrooms.

It was dusty work.  And it made my arms ache.  But it all got done.  And it was wonderful.

The walls, sanded down.  

Sunday was more about drywall.  Alan (Landon's Dad) spent the entire day mudding all three bedrooms and patching some holes in the walls (some made by us, others left by the previous owners).  Landon and I went behind him sanding down the dry mud.  It was even dustier than Saturday.

Mudding.  Not the fun kind.

One of many patches that need to be fixed.  

So much dust I went grey.

What tool was here?  I don't know.

But by the end of the day, we had almost completely finished  the work on the walls in all three bedrooms.  There are just a few more patches to finish up and few more places to sand down, but 90% of all the work is done.  After wiping it all down, we'll be ready to prime and paint!

One wall, almost ready to go!

The other major undertaking of the weekend, as I mentioned before, was installing overhead light fixtures in the three bedrooms.  And while we plan to install ceiling fans eventually, by the end of Saturday we had working lights in all three rooms (as well as redone switches and outlets that were no longer wired onto a switch).

My temporary light fixture.

There were a couple of other smaller projects that got taken care of as well.  There's a major improvement on the outside that was super simple but had a major impact.  And, we're working towards picking an exterior paint color, but I'll talk more about that in another post.

 I also went through today and removed all the switch plate covers and outlet covers in the entire house.  (And I washed the windows on the front of the house--boy were they gross.)  I also got to use a Sawzall to remove a couple of door frames that were hung incorrectly or were all jacked up.  That was fun, but it rattled my brains a bit.

Taking down the frame.

Almost there.

All done!

My box of switch plate covers.

It was a super productive weekend, but I have a feeling that I'm going to feel it tomorrow.  Still, hopefully by the end of the week we'll have started painting!  It's a major milestone that I've been looking forward to since closing.