The insulation inspector came out yesterday, poked his head in the attic, and gave it the thumbs up. Excellent. No having to wait around all day for an inspection before scheduling the next step! Our wonderful general contractor got right on the phone, and made arrangements for the drywall crew to come today.

They didn’t arrive as early as expected, which may have been a blessing, because it occurred to us that we needed to cut back the excess foam insulation behind the kneewalls. After all, why pay extra bucks to frame the access to that storage space, only to have it made mostly unusable by too much foam? So, Terry and I grabbed the sharpest knives we could find, and started carving away. Less than half-way through that process, the drywall crew arrived, many hours late, but raring to get to work.

We did our best to make sure they understood what needed to be done, and I gotta say, I really wish I had studied some Spanish, because my inability to communicate with them, and them with me made me very nervous about how this was going to go. The general contractor had to be at another job, and was planning to return here, but his truck broke down! We hoped at least that the framing foreman, who is totally fluent in Spanish and English, could come back, but he also had to be at another job. However, via the modern miracle of cellular technology, we made our concerns known to our contractor, who communicated them to the framing foreman, who called the drywall foreman, and — low and behold — all went very well.

These guys were amazing! They had the first piece of drywall up within about 10-15 minutes after arriving, delayed only by our inability to understand each other. They planned or promised — I wasn’t sure which — to have the job done before the day was over.

All three of them worked so hard, and were so pleasant and polite. They even carved away the remainder of the excess foam behind the knee walls. They asked if they could work until 6 or 7pm to complete the job, and we said, sure, work as long as you want to. And they almost got the whole thing done by 7:30pm, at which point they ran out of drywall, so they packed up for the night and promised to return this morning (Saturday).

And they came back, found a way to get the final piece of drywall up the attic stairs, finished the job, hauled away all the excess bits of sheetrock, swept up all the excess foam and bagged it, and did a very credible job of cleaning up after themselves. They were just superb! And see the pics below for the progress made to this point.

The drywall originally purchased was the wrong size (1/2″ instead of 5/8″), so it had to be moved out, then replaced with the thicker drywall.  Our carpenter crew uncomplainingly moved the 21 wrong sized pieces out, and then moved the 22 new right sized pieces in, and it only took them about an hour altogether!  These guys work really hard, and are willing to do whatever is needed.  Our contractor rented a scaffold for them while they were removing the half-inch drywall, which made it a little easier to haul up the 5/8 inch stuff.