Man, I’m Like, Totally Plastered!
During the destruction phase of the renovation, we knocked down a wall dividing the living room and bedroom (see Walls Walls, What Are They Good For). This opened up the small space and made it seem larger. It also gave us 180 degrees of windows and a lot of light. All of this is well and good, put eventually posed a problem once we moved in - where do we place the bed? Where is the bedroom?
To fix this, we took trip #57 down to the local Ikea store and bought a large shelving unit. Not wanting this large and heavy unit to crash down on us while we slept, we also bought some ceiling anchors. This effectively became our “wall,” albeit a see through one.
Renovation time is now July, 2005. We are still living with bare sheet rock walls. We have very little furniture. It seems like the renovation has stalled. This is because we have been waiting for a new roof to be put on the building. The contract was signed in August 2004. The roofer finally decided to grace us with his presence in May 2005, and he finishes in July. I can finally do some finish work without fear of water damage in the next heavy rain.
We hire another contractor to plaster. Modern plaster is much different than the plaster I originally stripped from the walls. Modern plaster is a cement like substance that is skim-coated across the entire wall at about a depth of 1/16th of an inch. It can be put up in one day and requires very little sanding. The only drawback is price - about $55 per sheet of drywall.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
The darker gray areas are the seams where one sheet of drywall abuts another. The drywall has tapered edges, so the plaster is thicker in these areas. It’ll take approximately one week to dry, at which time it is safe to paint. This will be our next step.
One other thing - plaster makes a unbelievable fucking mess. They’re basically taking a wet, mud like substance a sloshing it onto the walls. About half of it gets there. The other half gets on the floor, behind closed doors (somehow), all over the windows, in electrical outlets, everywhere. It doesn’t matter if the floor is covered with tar paper and the shelf with plastic, it’s there. It’ll take you twice as long to clean as it took the guy to do the work.
