Once we have finished the bedrooms we sleep in, it was time to work on the Guest Room. Over the months, we had done a little work here and there. As you can see above, we had the first coat of drywall mud on the concrete wall, and of course the drywall was in. I also had installed the closet shelves. This is the only bedroom with a closet on a concrete wall. I decided to put a 2x4 across the back wall to attach the shelves to since that was easier than drilling lots of little holes in the concrete for all of the support clips. I did drill into the concrete for the lower support brackets, and I can assure you, these shelves will buckle under a heavy load long before the supports come loose from the wall.
You can also see how we filled in the space between the drywall and the concrete ceiling. We simply toke more drywall mud and pushed it into the gap, and slid the trowel along the ceiling line to smooth it out. The hardest part was getting up that high. I had help from one of my sons (he knows who he is) that came down one Saturday to give me a hand.
I was finally able to hire a small crew to do some finish work on the remaining drywall before the final push to get the house ready for our appraisal at the end of the 2 year construction loan (more on that later).
I actually overcame my fear of getting on the scaffold and finished the guest room. I believe it has the best ceiling of any room in the house.
This is the finished product. We were able to get carpeting put in the rest of the house, including this bedroom, and I put in all of the baseboards and trim on the doors. I guess eventually, I will put doors in the closets, but not for a while.
Notice the little alcove on the left. This is the result of butting up against a concrete wall which is 10 inches thick, with a stud wall that is less that 5 inches thick. I think I will put some shelves in there for books and stuff.
This shot shows our bedroom carpet, that was installed a couple of months ago, preparing to meet the carpet in the rest of the house. I know they don't exactly match, but it works. We have had exposed concrete floors for many months, and it was nice to finally cover them up.
In addition to the carpeting, we wanted laminate in the dining room area to make it easier to clean up food messes when we have the whole clan over. I spent a bit more than I wanted, but this was the best looking laminate I could find, and nothing else came even close. I doubt the pictures will do it justice. I had some help with the first day of installation, but I finished the 2nd day by myself, at 5 am after pulling an all-nighter. It takes longer than you would think, although it is not complicated. Fortunately, I only had a few tricky cuts and they came out fine.
Notice the large sheet of plastic. You have to do this over concrete. One of the things I liked about this laminate is that it comes in 3 different lengths, giving it a more wood like layout and appearance, with randomly staggered joints. That thing in the corner is for our wood stove, which will be installed later.
Here is the finished product, all bordered and ready to use.
Here is the entire living room with it's new flooring. The cats seem to approve.
