Part of our preparation for sheet rock was to finish the plumbing to the kitchen and bath. We had to have it all roughed in. This involved climbing in crawl spaces for Perry. Under the additions the crawl space is 3-4 feet. Our kitchen is in the old part of the house and has about 2 ft. of space. Some of the plumbing is located in the storage room under the kitchen and it is about 7 feet tall. Perry is not a fan of these confined spaces especially the one under the old house.
The main line for the water comes in about 4 feet under the ground into the kitchen sink area. This is where it's only about 2 feet tall. Perry had to connect the water line from there into the house. After doing so, it leaked at a turn off valve in the middle of a metal pipe. He went down one day to remove the valve so he would know what kind to buy to replace it. In the process of trying to remove it, he discovered that it just needed tightened. While he was down there he decided to snug up that pipe to its connection underground because he was afraid he had loosened it. So snug he did, except it snapped the pipe off underground. He had to get in that small space and dig down to the connection about 2 feet down in the dirt. The metal pipe was connected to PVC and you can't tighten that kind of connection. He had to lay down there and try to dig out dirt. There was no room to move the dirt so we vacuumed it out with the shop vac. It was a miserable job. After digging down, he had to fix the connection. Just getting to the connection, digging enough room to work on it and figuring out what was needed to fix it took one whole Saturday. He got it done and guess what? It leaked.
The next weekend he prayed and climbed in the whole again. He took it all apart and jerry-rigged a long pipe with a pipe threader on it to re-thread the connection. It worked and this time didn't leak. It only took about an hour that Saturday. Needless to say he was so thankful it did. He didn't want to get down there again.
While he was working on this they had started the sheet rock. We hired this and the taping and texturing done. They delivered the sheetrock and we had them come into the back field and up to the back of the house so they could use the boom to unload it and bring it in the house.
Two guys came in to put it up. In a day and a half they had completely sheet rocked the walls and ceiling in the 1700 square feet of space. They were so fast!
The kitchen is in an area of the house that was originally a lean-to added on to the back of the old house. It had been redone when the addition was added to it. A new roof line was put on and a room added above it. We wish they would have continued the vaulted ceiling over it but they didn't. The ceiling in the kitchen is 7 foot 3 inches tall. They left the ceiling joists open and tongue and grooved the floor above. Pretty but dark and hard to put nice lights in. Not to mention the exposed wiring. We went back and forth about what to do with it. Whitewash the ceiling and leave it open or close it in and put lots of can lights. Opinions from family and friends were 50/50. We finally decided to close it in with a ship lap board. (I discovered over the weeks of living here that it was a magnet for cobwebs. Plus trying to find a pretty light that fit between the joists and didn't hang down lower than them was almost impossible.)
Before
After
The Peak
And then the tape and texture.
Hey it's starting to look like we are getting somewhere!!
