The framing is finished!

I finished the left closet, including door jamb, on Monday. Before putting away my nail gun, I installed furring strips in various corners, where needed, for drywall attachment.

I have three tasks remaining before I request another inspection:

1. Finish the rough wiring. (The biggest challenge is pulling wire from the circuit-breaker box at the front of the house to this new room. The code requires a new "arc-fault" circuit. To route the wire, I have begun cutting access channels into the drywall ceiling of the garage.)
2. Tie a new duct into the furnace to bring heating/cooling to this room.
3. Attach stucco mesh to the outside wall around the new bedroom window.

Once the inspection takes place (hopefully in about 3 weeks), I can stucco the outside, paint the stucco, tear down the scaffolding, and begin installing drywall in this room – and on the dining-room ceiling below it.

I am actually starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel – so much so that I have begun thinking ahead to the flooring. Prior to getting this Tea Room and the rest of the house carpeted, we want to look into ways to improve the stairway by adding a wood base and skirting under the spindles. The stair-carpet situation has bugged us for 20 years:  It looks cheap to have the carpet wrapping around the edges, and it is horrendously expensive and time-consuming for carpet installers to cut carpet around each stair spindle.

We'll start the investigation by getting some sticker-shock from a stairs contractor this week.