there was the annual carnaval festival on our street this weekend. they closed off about 8 blocks for saturday and sunday for a big parade, music, dancing and food; it was really loud and sounded like people had a lot of fun. but we didn’t see any of it because we spent the entire weekend upstairs working on the living room. maybe we’ll attend the festivities next year!
here are some “before” photos. the left side has more of that weird paneling which we’ll leave up for now. the right side had some really bad cracks in the plaster and ugly spots where it had been “repaired.” and all over the room the paint had been cracking and peeling (like a really bad faux finish!)
to start, mathew made a special plastic sheeting door. one layer had a slit and the second layer covered it. it’s to keep lead dust and fumes from leaving the room. next we covered the entire floor with canvas drop cloths and taped them to the baseboards.
we started by scraping whatever would easily come off of the walls.
after mathew did a quick sanding, i screwed in lots of metal plaster washers to hold the loose plaster to the wood lathe behind it.
we stripped the paint from the smaller walls and from the picture rails. (right) this is what was hiding under all those years of paint!
the fumes are toxic so we spent nearly the entire weekend with goggles and respirator masks on.
(left) plaster tape for the cracks in the ceiling. (right) mesh tape for the cracks in the walls.
it’s amazing how dramatic plaster can be!
wow. that photo makes me look like i know what i’m doing; you can’t see all the dropped plaster and the edge marks from the trowel. i managed to get the wall about half finished and then ran out of plaster. hopefully we can get more plaster this week and finish this wall.
it always surprises me how fast one has to work with plaster; each batch lasts for about 20-30 minutes before it sets, so i have to have it on the wall and smoothed out in that time. after that, there is about another 30 minutes to work the surface (ie, make it smooth and polished by wetting the trowel with water and rubbing the entire surface). the plaster continues to get harder after that, and while it’s possible to still work it, it’s hard work and does not make a whole lot of difference.