Sheet Rock Talk

Let’s talk about sheet rock.  First of all, is it one word or two?  In the trade, they call it drywall.  Neither term really fits the product, I think a better name is wallboard.  It’s a board that makes up your walls.  I like that term best.

Our NEWA home will have quite a bit of wallboard.  Our last house had very little, just in the bathrooms.  This house will be a mixture of pine and sheet rock.  I love natural wood.  The pine up here in NEWA is about one-fourth of the price it would be in Nevada or probably California.  We go straight to the mill and order exactly what we want.  

The mill (Webley’s) is a story in itself.  You literally drive up into the hills and you come upon this place where logs and cut wood is stacked all over (acres of it).  There are all kinds and shapes and sizes of logs  and boards.  You get tons of ideas for wood while standing there.  The office is an old log building.  It turns out that Webley’s manufactured a ton of log homes during the housing boom.  They shipped a bunch to Arizona.  Mr. Webley is threatening to retire now that demand has tapered off, but you can see his heart and his soul in the wood he produces from the trees of NEWA.  It smells like fresh cut wood here.  I bet he has sawdust in his veins.

Yesterday everyone showed up at the same time.  Our contractor Keith from Black Bear arrived.  He came to make sure the woodstove pipe went through HIS roof properly.  Most contractors would build for you, get paid and move to the next job.  Keith puts his heart into his work and wants to make sure everything is perfect.  He wouldn’t have it any other way.  So he’ll drive the one hour one way trip up here after the fact to make sure there are no disappointments or surprises.  That is why Black Bear Buildings will be successful in NEWA. 

Keith thinks nothing of tying a rope to a tree and walking up the side of our 10/12 pitch metal roof to get the job done.  Even the woodstove installers from Tri County Stove were impressed.

So as Keith arrives, Josh Wolf, our wallboard contractor arrives with his crew.  They cover all of the floors (upstairs and down), to protect them from wallboard and mud debris.  Then here comes a big crane truck loaded with wallboard.  The wallboard we are familiar with comes in 8’ sheets.  These came in 12’ sheets.  You can see in the pictures how they got it up the stairs.  These guys were something else, driving right between the trees and water faucets to get to the only window big enough to pass through.  It was quite a site to watch.  

She sleeps!

The wood stove installers came with our wood stove door and the ash pan, hooked up the blower and finished installing the stove.  It’s ready to rock and roll.  Don and I are taking bets (care to make a wager?) on how many cords of wood we will use in our super-insulated house.  Seems to me there should be a tax break in all this energy-conciousness.  By the way, the first three cords of wood are stacked and covered, yea!

By the way, stayed tuned for my next story, it’s a doosey!