Thursday, May 28, 2009

Rough morning...

We're taking a home improvement mini-break. All we did yesterday was change out some lightbulbs in the kitchen, and hang a mirror that I'd spray painted black (it used to be attached to our dresser but we sawed it off).

The floors are going to be finished today (yay!) and our drywall friends, Joel & Laurie will be back to put on a second coat of plaster on the walls.

Oh, did I tell you about the walls?

Imagine hard whipped cream cheese spread all over your walls. That's what we had in the living room. It was horrible and if you rubbed against in the wrong way it actually hurt. Take a gander:

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Bad, right? It could be fine on the OUTSIDE of the house but the living room? I think not. Also in this room, two cheaply made "built-in" display cases that I'm guessing the previous owner used to display her commemorative plate or porcelin doll collection or perhaps (see my earlier post) something kinkier. You think you know people, you know?

Anyhoodles, being the do-it-0urselfers that we are we decided to rip out said built-ins and try a few different things to smooth out the walls. First the built-ins:

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Sweet fancy Jesus those were hard to get out but we managed it, stuffed them in the U-Haul (which we had for a few more days) and took them to the dump.

Side note: Don't judge me but I totally went dumpster diving and plucked out these adorable little tables which were a little beaten up. A little Clorox plus a $4 can of spray paint later and they're adorable and adorning my patio as we speak. I'm sort of like the ghetto Martha Stewart, no?

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Oh, you'll also find that with every home improvement project comes a little surprise and this was no different - we found this hole behind one built-in:

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Don't be fooled - it's not the gateway to Hades. It's actually just an air return duct leading to the basement. Just had to buy a new grill and replace it. No harm, no foul and only a few bugs sneaking in from the basement.

But I digress. Back to the walls. Okay first we tried sanding them:

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See how happy Mr. P looks? He's saying, "Hooray! I get to use my fancy new sander that ALLEGEDLY sucks up all the particles so they don't get all over your fruit bowl!" That's before we realized that sanding was NOT going to work. (and also that it does NOT suck up all the particles) The wall plaster is made out of a mixture of sand and concrete and it was holding on for dear life. So we went to Lowes where our friendly sales clerks suggested we try mudding over the walls with joint compound:

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The smile on his face isn't happiness - he's just high off the fumes. Three hours later he'd only finished that corner. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a BIG room - 35 X 16 feet big. We decided to call in the experts. To our credit, eventually we would've gotten there but it was worth every penny for someone to come in and do this in just a few hours:

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This process requires about four or five coats of the stuff but it'll eventually get super smooth and paintable. Joel and Laurie are coming back for coat number two this afternoon. Our awesome living room is just days away from being a reality!

And thank god. Mr. P and I need some quality couch time.

1 comment:

  1. Uh, there are no pictures of you doing any of this work. Is that part of the "retirement" plan there in Omaha? Work poor Hobs to death, send him to work and then you can coffee klatch with Mrs. Kravitz and the girls?
    Let's see you in action Missy...

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