Drywall

Well, most of it is dry, anyway.

Stairwell

Archway into Library

In one day of feverish activity, a rugby side worth of guys rolled through the house hanging drywall. Every surface was covered, save for maybe 5-10% of a few upstairs rooms. A smaller group returned on the following day to finish the job.

Over the next couple of days into yesterday, 3 guys taped and mudded all of the rooms, completing roughly 90% of the work as the holiday weekend approached.

For the first time in 6 months, you can no longer see the old bones of the house. At the moment, it looks a lot like any other house under construction, with the only visible old features consisting of the staircase and the original heart pine floors on the first and second levels. That will change when the doors, windows, trim and other distinctively "old" features re-appear inside the house.

Wet Media Room

In other developments, water is wet and old foundations leak. The continued rain in northern Virginia has put our water management system in the old basement to quite a test. Unfortunately, we are still working to perfect the approach. The main issue with old foundations is to realize there is nothing you can do to keep water out entirely, but instead work to channel and remove any water as soon as it gets in.

Our foundation contractor installed drain board along the walls leading to perforated drain tile under the slab, which then flows to the sump. One of the problems has been due to the fact that the sump pump hadn't been installed yet, and so water was just overflowing the sump itself. The bigger concern is that the drain tile isn't catching all the water and it is just running onto the basement floor. Clearly this is, shall we say, an unfavorable condition for what will be finished space. Work continues to address the situation, which is not holding up anything else at the moment.

At this point, the renovation moves into the installation of finishes, the last stretch of work. In the next couple of weeks, all of the window and door trim will be installed. Work will begin on tiling the bathrooms. Most importantly, we will be attempting to pull up some of the original flooring to patch parts of the living room parlor floor. We are hopeful that the entire first floor of the old house, the front bedroom, the laundry room and the second floor hallway will be finished with restored heart pine flooring from the original house.