Drywall and painting

10 Apr, 2022  

February 2022

Plan for this trip: Interior painting!

This trip is dedicated to interior painting. Weather has delayed some things. I have kept in touch with Guy, our project manager, and he has been instrumental in keeping on schedule as much as possible and pushing things through to coordinate work with our visiting schedule. Anyone with a job can relate to how it can be challenging to get time off when you need it. My job requires staff to put in for vacation time at the beginning of each year for time off for the entire year. Additional time off requests after this Annual Vacation Request period is granted on an as-available basis. When my kids were younger, every time off request revolved around their school vacation calendar. With our youngest graduating high school last year, this is the first year in my motherhood that I have not had to do that. Oh, The freedom!

And then…we embarked on this house build journey and following the build schedule and trying to schedule time off around homeowner responsibilities has been challenging. I have to admit a couple of times, I had to invoke my ‘sick’ benefit to ensure that I could be where I needed to be.

THE TRIP. No major snowstorms since we left last. I have been checking traffic cams once again before my trip. This time, we jam packed our box trailer again and we were towing heavy. Roads were clear from California to Idaho, until…we hit the side roads leading to our Idahome. Turning into our non-county managed road, uh-oh, I see ice…We slip and slide around the narrow road using the snow and ice banks piled high on both sides as bumpers. Do we need chains? We slide backwards to a flat area...Uhhh, Let’s Gun it! …and….we make it by the skin of our teeth! Our drive way looked good. Thanks to our snow plow guy Tim. There’s still snow, but it looks packed down. No digging needed like last time! It’s Tuesday night.

ARRIVAL. As we approach our house, it is dark at 9pm…but I could see siding! We used our cell phone flashlights and entered the house. Heaters and fans are blasting as expected and drywall is up. More than half is already taped and mudded and garage is finished. Progress! Time to open up the RV and settle in. RV is intact, nothing is exploded this time. Battery even works for the lights. Generators will be needed to operate the slide. No problem, ours are stored on our on-site shipping container just down the driveway.  Freezing temps makes the battery drain fast. (not just car batteries, but my cell phone battery too!) We replaced our batteries last trip because they would no longer keep the charge.  Once the RV battery is fully charged (which might require the generators to run at least half a day), they will keep their charge better. Our new house has electricity now, but our RV is parked away from the house to the side (opposite side of the power source) to keep out of the way of workers coming and going.   We will explore the house more tomorrow in daylight. We are very happy with the progress. I was told that drywall should be done and textured by Wednesday.  

Next morning, we woke up late, workers already on-site. They continue their work and we are unloading all of our stuff. We have two 20-foot shipping containers on-site and we take the day unloading in one. The other one is able to be accessed by foot, but large snow banks from the plow has made it inaccessible to back up the box trailer to the container and we have heavy items that need to go there. It is Wednesday. The rest of the day is spent clearing the snow with excavator and snow blower so that the box trailer can be backed up right to the container. Drywall workers left early so we assume they will return tomorrow. We can see that someone has been on the roof. While we were away, the wood stove people started the rough-in for the wood stove.

We chose a KUMA brand woodstove. This is a family run, local business that interestingly enough, has roots in Central California.  The workmanship looks solid and is attractive to us. Having a quality woodstove is super important. I believe that some woodstoves are better than others. Better made models are more efficient, use less wood to achieve a consistent heat output, and burns less volume to keep you warm. We reserved ours last May from All About Chimneys in Sagle, ID. It took a while for it to be made and was ready in January. The plan was for the process to start with a rough install and complete install once flooring is complete. The rough install will be in conjunction with roof install. The hearth pad will sit directly on the flooring, carpet in our case.     

Thursday, I asked the drywall guys when they would be done. They say a guy is coming Monday to texture. We are delayed, but I think we can still make it work… We unload heavy items into the 2nd container and go shopping for primer and shelves for the shipping container. Shelves will allow for the storage to be more efficient. Having storage on property is priceless. Having these two shipping containers has been so helpful. Storage seems to be at a premium in North Idaho. The units seem to be rented even before the buildings are built and every trip we make, there seem to be more storage building along the main roads. Our project manager called to say he will come tomorrow and I told him that I was told they would be done Monday. Drywall guys stayed late, they worked a full day today. Not sure if that was their plan or if our project manager contacted them.

Friday.  Texture guys came and completed wall texture. Plan for them to return on Monday to knockdown and fix any areas needed.

Sat & Sun. Prep for paint. Prep work takes just as long as the paint job. Plan is to start painting Monday so it was great to have this time to prep. We taped windows, shower/tubs, electric boxes, and swept floors of dust and debris.

Monday. Spray PVA (Glidden PVA) on all surfaces-walls and ceilings. We are using a Graco Magnum ProX17 airless paint sprayer from Home Depot. This is an excellent machine! In the past we have used a Wagner paint sprayer…well, let me tell you, this is like night and day. Hands down, this Graco Magnum sprayer is better. Less drips, spatters, a more even finish and overall feels like a better machine. The prep work is where all the time goes when you are going to spray, but once the prep is done, you can spray a whole lot of house in one or two days.

PVA vs. Primer…PVA is meant for new drywall. It makes the paint stick like glue and is cheaper! My neighbor recommended this and it was also recommended in the paint prep detail provided by Lexar Homes. When I am not painting on new drywall, I use Zinsser 1-2-3 Primer.  

Tues. Spray PVA, day 2. Had to go buy more paint otherwise we may have finished yesterday. Painting with the airless sprayer does seem to use more paint. We do not thin the paint. There is a product called Flotrol which is good to mix into finish paint like the trim and sills, but I prefer not to use this on wall paint because it can thin out the paint ad you may need to do a second coat. I painted 2 bedrooms with color using my stick roller while Art continued with the PVA.  My paint of choice is BEHR from Home Depot over any other brand. I love the colors, the spread, coverage, and the durability. I have used other brands and have been disappointed. I will always choose BEHR!  

Wed. Spray PVA, day 3. I paint 2 Bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1 closet. Partial hallway with color.

Thursday. Spray all ceilings. Cabinets to be delivered tomorrow. Must paint as much as possible before cabinets to prevent any overspray on cabinets. The paint becomes aerosolized and gets everywhere.

Friday. cabinet delivery. No more spraying. Keep on painting rooms…this seems like a much bigger house when you have to paint the whole thing.

Sat & Sunday. Continue to paint. 8+ hour days. Taping off painted ceilings and painting the walls. There is electricity, but no lighting (switches not yet connected) except for work lights which do not provide even light. After painting each room, I check over every bit of it and still, later on, I find spots where I missed or the paint has opened up and there’s a pinhole, probably a lot more visible because we are using colors that are far from the white of the primer. I was told that I could color the primer, but the paint guy at Home Depot said that coloring primer is not recommended. The touch ups take a lot of time.

The ceilings are very high also in the main room. We bought a convertible ladder. This a heavy ladder compared to your regular one-height ladders, but the versatility is great. I used it in as an A-frame ladder for lower areas and was able to make it into a straight lean-to ladder for the highest areas. The height is also adjustable. Great buy. Maybe not the go-to ladder for quick projects because it is heavy, but it certainly has a permanent spot in my tool collection.  In my opinion, I think the ceiling/wall edge looks cleaner when you paint the walls first, let it dry, tape off the edge with paper and tape and then do the ceiling. Both walls and ceiling has its own texture so tape is not perfect. We also tried painting the ceilings first and walls later and it seems like it is easier to touch up the wall than the ceiling when there are imperfections. Getting a straight line…tape is great, but if you are free-handing it, I would recommend using a quality cut paintbrush, not the cheap disposable chip paintbrushes. Cheaper brushes are great for other areas, but remember to watch for stray hairs because they tend to shed. Quality paintbrushes hold more paint, don’t shed, and can provide a better straight edge line.

Monday. Cabinet installers delayed. Will come tomorrow. We look everything over and do last minute touch ups. This is the most colorful house I will have lived in. I love the nature colors we picked, but as I was painting, I felt on more than one occasion that the colors were too deep. I feel like I have to justify why I chose those colors, but at the same time, I really love them.

Tues. Cabinet installers did not make it up due to road conditions. I was told that they were on my street at 630am and could not make it up even with chains, too slippery. Today was a bit warmer, 40-50s with sun and the snow and ice was getting slushy. Night time should be over freezing temps so hopefully they can come tomorrow.

Wed. Cabinet installers arrive and start. We take a sneak peek and some photos, but have to return to California today.    

IN RETROSPECT…So far, as I look back at far we have come, I will admit that I didn’t think it would have gone this smoothly. I really didn’t know what to expect. Starting on this house build journey, I thought visiting regularly would be a chore, something that wouldn’t be possible. But, we were able to visit at least every other month. We made it work. It was so important to have made the necessary sacrifices to visit because this project is important. We made it important. Had we not taken the time, I am sure that we would not have been as far along.

We didn’t know a lot going in. We made right choices that have improved our outcome. The loads and loads of rock we had delivered and spread over road fabric to make the driveway has been instrumental in keeping our project accessible. Road fabric will prevent the rock from sinking in so if you do this, do not forget this important step or you will keep pouring rock year after year because it will sink in once the ground gets soft. And having a plow guy on retainer…another important step in keeping the roads accessible to workers.  And finally, our visits. Had we not visited last month, our project would have stopped because the siding materials got buried in the snow. Workers come to work their trade, not to dig out the materials.

One thing we could have changed, would have been to have chosen a parking spot for our RV that was closer to the power source so we could plug in vs. living off of generators. But, it really has not been too much of an inconvenience. We use two 2000-watt Honda generators which are linked together. I have done it for over a decade as a 4-H leader who lived at the fair to be with the kids 2 weeks out of each year so not new for me. Dry camping. Glamping. RV living is better than hotel living. All the comforts of home, more or less, on a smaller scale.  

CLEANING AND TRASH DURING THE BUILD. When we signed the contract for the house build, there are several times when there is homeowner cleaning required, usually after one trade has left and before the next comes in. A cleaning company was recommended for the job. We were able to work it out so we cleaned when we were on site. The 1st lesson about trash came from the framers. We arrived in the middle of framing and witnessed it coming together during one of our trips. When we arrived, we witnessed a lot of burning. At first it was alarming because that amount of burning (and of building materials!) would not be allowed in California, but we realized that it was a practical way to decrease the bulk of trash. One thing we did notice was that once a piece of lumber has a nail or screw and it doesn’t work out, it gets discarded. I saw a lot of large pieces of wood and lumber being burned. I spoke to the framers and asked if they could put the larger pieces to the side so I could look through it. I was able to save a lot of wood that would have otherwise been burned up. So far, each trade has been great about bagging/piling up their trash in manageable piles. Concrete siding does not burn so we will discard those (Heavy!). Wood and cardboard can be burned. Drywall can be composted or go back to the ground. Plumbing didn’t leave much trash.

We have a rolling magnet that we use to pick-up nails and metal. I would recommend everyone to do this. No one wants to come to work and leave with a flat tire. Framing, Roofing, and Drywall workers all use screws, nails, and staples – I have probably picked up about 5+ pounds of metal so far.

LOOKING AHEAD. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel…house should be done by end of April. Construction Loans have a life of one year, so we have some wiggle room if there are short delays. Septic permit expires in May so I am hoping to finish that project before then. We still need to install a well pump and well pressure tank. We plan to do that ourselves. We received quotes for this and I feel like we can save thousands of dollars doing it ourselves.

Exterior painting. We will also paint the exterior. It is currently, too cold to paint outside, it will not dry. We have 6 months from installation of siding, to paint (which will put us in July 2022). Concrete pour for garage floor also delayed due to it being still too cold right now.   

After painting the inside, now electric can return to install outlets and switches. Flooring pending. Doors and trim install and then painting by us on our next trip (April 2022). Cabinets underway. Toilets pending. Completion of wood stove install pending.  

Check back for more updates…we will return in April. According to the Builder schedule, we might even be done at the end of April. There are 2 big items that we need to finish. We still have no well pump or septic. The ground is frozen right now.

Our house build journey is about 75% complete. So happy with how far we have come. Lexar Homes has really been a pleasure to work with. We used Banner bank for financing and that also, has been nothing but a positive experience. I hope that everyone who builds a house has similar experiences. So far, nothing but good memories…and I hope our story is helping you, my readers, to understand how we were able to do this. One task at a time. Set small goals, complete, and move forward. We did not have hard plans starting out, just a general goal. I didn’t even know how or if we would be able to do this. Our plans evolved around what was happening and we dedicated each trip to completing one or more tasks.

Have faith.

Enjoy the process.

Appreciate the progress.