Drywall complete

Powder room and rear addition now have walls ready for paint.

Quantity of new drywall in the powder room was 352 square feet (gross). Quantity in rear addition was 1920 square feet.

Powder room costs are kept separate, as I'm doing all the work myself.

Rear addition drywall costs, including materials, came to a total of $3,613.

Drywall hung

The standard AEC (Architectural, Engineering, Construction) term is gypsum wallboard. Common term is drywall. Name brand often used for the generic is Sheetrock by USG. This room, in fact, has mostly Toughrock by Georgia-Pacific. Total cost of materials = $595. Labor costs to be posted later, as the same contractor is doing the taping and texturing here.Hanging crew is often different from finishing crew. Inspection of nailing or screws comes in between (tomorrow for me). Then it's mud, tape, more mud, sanding, skim coat, texture, etc. -- depending on how fancy you want it... and how much money you want to spend.

Ceiling in powder room

Powder room Suntunnel (see how it looks on the roof) is now roughed in, ceiling drywall fastened, and rigid insulation pressed between flat studs against brick veneer.

Blocking for future grab bars are positioned about 33 inches from the floor, on the left side wall and chamfer corner wall only.

DIY splice @ service drop

Enough of waiting for PG&E. Rain is approaching.Three thimble brackets now secure an aluminum splice wire looped onto the new weatherhead. Three more fasten the splice at the tension wire coming down from the power pole. Electrical connections were previously made by an electrician (nearly three months ago!). Click on photo to backtrack. Old weatherhead was cut off at the roof, now hidden. Now ready for rain.

Range hood duct

Standard 7-inch diameter duct located 63 inches from corner.

Insulated

Ready for next inspection (insulation)... as if the wires between studs didn't exist.

Total cost of insulation = $805, which includes expanding foam for cracks and gaps, underfloor (not yet installed) and rigid poly-isocyanurate where required.

Submeter, electric

The heavy trunk 2-AWG cable is now connected to an Inepro DRM75A submeter ($84 plus shipping and tax, new, from eBay) in the weather-tight box outside. Photos link to the previous post about the box. Birdhouse shell will get modified later with a viewing window.

Painted

Deck boards

For the upper landing deck I used mostly Tigerclaw fasteners. The proper version is important as the boards need to be literally sledge-hammered onto the spikes. And that's the challenge -- everything must be strong enough to withstand repeated blunt lateral blows. Other versions include longer prongs for softwoods and a shorter for hardwoods like Ipé.

One drawback with Tigerclaw is that the first and last boards have to be fastened some other way. That's where the Deckmaster brackets came into use again. I wanted to avoid top screws altogether. Cost of a small box of Tigerclaw TC-3 (90 claws, which covers about 45 sq.ft. of 5 1/2" boards over joists spaced 16" on centers) was $76 retail plus tax -- very expensive compared to screws or nails.

I also did some bottom-up angled deck screws where possible, which may have just been fine throughout! Drilling is necessary through the Trex boards. Everything feels solid... for now at least.