living room is primed

The living room is primed. 

We have a good idea of paint colors for the bathrooms and kitchen. Still working on color choices for the living room and bedrooms.

wood stove is hooked up

Last year we purchased an EPA efficient wood stove. We used it in our house through last winter. However we just rehooked up our old wood stove and Martin brought the "new" wood stove to an tigin. Since the mudding, sanding, and priming are done in the living room, he was able to hook it up.

We are looking forward to seeing how much (or preferably how little) firewood we burn with an tigin being well insulated and the wood stove being more efficient than the old-fashioned style.

Dust collection system

Martin was getting frustrated with how quickly the filter and bag in his shop vac were clogging up with sheetrock dust. 

He ordered a "Cyclone" for a dust collection system through e-bay, only to find out that it would be months before it would arrive. 

He needs to vacuum up the sheetrock dust after he sands a room before he primes.

So after many YouTube videos on DIY dust collection systems, he decided to throw one together.

It took about an hour and works like a charm. The dust goes into the 5 gallon bucket sideways and the suction from below creates a cyclone effect. Nearly all of the dust stays inside the bucket and doesn't go into the vacuum to clog up the filter and bag.

To improve the entire enterprise, he added a portable light.

Driveway widened

We have some difficulty with drainage in our driveway. The run off from the road went straight into the driveway. Martin added drainage to the driveway. The he widened it and raised the level of the driveway. Now we have a place for company to park and hopefully we won't have an ice rink in the winter.