Well that's it, the tape, float, and texture is finished. Two guys arrived this morning and did the textures. I went over what I wanted with them (they already knew but I think were humoring me) and immediately started to work.  I couldn't believe they finished by 3:00 pm. Janice and I went to inspect the textures with them and we were both blown away with the quality of work they had performed. It looks beautiful. The pictures I downloaded will not show the true quality. I wanted an old Texas plaster look in the living, formal dining, kitchen, and hallway, the bedrooms, baths, and closets done in a medium Monterrey. The medium Monterrey was the type of texture we had in the house we sold in 2011.  I specified rounded corners throughout the house.  I really like how they turned out.

 

So far my Spanish has held up.  All the sheetrock, tape float, and texture guys didn't speak English.

Man, has my Spanish gotten bad since we moved to Austin 38 years ago.  I'm almost ready to start speaking make believe Spanish like some folks do here in Austin.  They add an 'O' to English words:

Mi forgotto to buyo the supplyo's neededo.  Geez!

 

The hallway and doorway to the mudroom.
The big square cut-out is for the return air for the
air conditioner and heater.

 

The formal dining room from the living room.



The texture in the living, formal dining, kitchen, and hall.

Janice and I are in charge of disposing of the garbage (one of the reasons we
got a pretty good deal on the price of the overall job).  I'm going to rig my trailer with
plywood walls in order for us to load all this and take it to the dump. 
There's another pile in the back of the house.
 

 

I didn't get a chance to take pictures today.  I'll do it tomorrow.  The framing/plumbing contractors came by yesterday and installed the tub in No. 2 bathroom.  They also installed the shower heads and faucets in both bathrooms.  They installed the attic stairs that will open onto the carport.  I needed this in order to blow the attic insulation and for the installation of the lights over the carport.
The tape and float guys arrived this morning and finished a second float on the joints and installed all the rounds on all the corners.  It looks fantastic.
Tomorrow I'll take and download some pictures.

I had to do some fancy computing to get the pictures to download.  Doing it this new, strange way has allowed me to download more than two pictures at a time.  I swear I'll always stumble my way through computing.

 

The Formal Dining room from the hallway.
To the left is part of the Living Room.

Bedroom 2

Master Bedroom



Master Bedroom.  I designed it so that we
can use it as a sleeping porch in the Spring.
We should get nice southerly breezes.

The sheetrock guys arrived at 9:00 this morning.  They worked until about 4:00 p.m. and finished the job.  Janice and I walked the rooms a few minutes ago.  You can really see the size of the rooms now.  I think I got carried away with the formal dining room; we could have a dance party if we wanted to.  After hearing her complain about the size of the formal dining in our previous house I really designed one with some square footage.
All and all the sizes came out like we figured they would.  It's a nice size house with a hell of a porch.

I'll include some interior pictures when this blog site does some trouble shooting and lets me download them.
I've been trying to download some pictures I took a little while ago and it won't let me.

The sheetrock is being put up.  Four guys showed up Saturday and started work.  They finished the ceiling, bedroom 2, and about halfway down most of the walls.  Mark came in later Saturday and finished putting in the sewer line.  He covered it as well.  Both the sheetrock guys and Mark worked about half the day on Saturday.  The sheetrock guys will be here tomorrow.
Janice and I didn't have a chance to repair the tears in the rosen paper the sheetrock guys made.  After putting in all that rosen paper to protect the floor we would hate for them to do any damage to the floor.  Maybe tomorrow morning.

It's been too soggy to work on the house.  My only concern is still the open trench with the sewer line in it.  Tomorrow Janice and I will finish papering the floor.  Today we were taken a bit off course because of hay.  One of the ranchers we buy hay from had hay for sale for a good price.  He said we could pick it up today.  We hitched up the hay trailer and drove to his place to buy 7 rolls of hay.  This should get us to March.  We unloaded it in the corral.
When we returned from buying the hay we were surprised with a new calf.  It's a pretty calf that had been born less than an hour before.  I hope it makes it ok with this soggy, cold weather.

After the trenching and pipe laying things have slowed again.  The only pipe I'm worried about is the sewer line.  This is probably the most important pipe that had to be installed because of the required drop (slope) and it sits above ground with the trench open.  It rained and it's cold.  Tomorrow I'll walk to the trench to see if it is ok. 
The sheetrock guy came by right after Christmas and advised me to order the sheetrock before January 1st.  He said all building materials would be going up January 1st.  We gave him a check to order the sheetrock in December.  He was right.  I went to Home Depot's website to find an attic ladder for a 12 foot ceiling (in the carport).  We had already checked Home Depot in the area and the tallest they had was for 10 foot ceilings.  At Home Depot's website they had one that I wanted to order.  However, I wanted it delivered to the store in Hutto, not to my house.  I couldn't find a way to have it delivered to the Home Depot in Hutto.  Then, the new year came and went.  We went to Home Depot today to find out how to order it and have it delivered to their store.  They called up the website and had me fill out my name, phone, and MasterCard number.  They then entered their address for delivery.  Damned if the ladder hadn't gone up $30.00 from 2012 to 2013.  It was the exact same site and ladder that I had viewed and tried to order on December 30th.