Drywall Dust and Old Rock 'n Roll

The "room" project was on hold for quite awhile until a few weeks ago when Jay got laid off work. Suddenly he had more time to mess with it and got re-motivated. Since then, he's spent quite a bit of time in there and gotten a lot accomplished…although it's things that really don't show up in pictures, which is why I haven't taken any until now.

There is very little that I can do in there right now, it's mostly Jay's ball game. I'm anxious to help spray on texture and then paint… but we're a long way from that (or so he tells me). I did finish the door but it's not hung yet because Jay doesn't want it to get messed up. The open doorway is covered with plastic. So these days my contribution to the project mostly consists of sweeping and vacuuming up powdery dry wall dust that accumulates on the floor daily…. (sometimes in very thick layers).

Besides that, I periodically go in there when Jay's working, stand around a bit, reassure him that it looks great, and ask if there is anything I can do. He almost always says, "no, not right now"… so I leave. He seems to almost enjoy hanging out in there, doing his thing, and listening to oldies on the radio at a volume that I find hard to tolerate. Oh yeah.. besides listening, he's usually singing along.

So, what has he done since my last update?

He's scraped all the "popcorn" off the ceiling and patched all the "scars" left by torn down walls in both the ceiling and other remaining walls. He has also done a lot of screwing… I mean he replaced the original nails in all the drywall in both ceiling and walls with screws. The nails weren't holding the drywall in place well and tending to pop thru in places. After putting in about a million screws, (in every single stud in both the ceiling and walls) he patched up those holes with drywall mud, and sanded it smooth… and then patched again and sanded again… and patched again and sanded again. (I THINK he is ALMOST done with this routine, but I won't be surprised if he's not.)

Here are some rather boring pictures of the walls and ceiling:

All those white stripes on the ceiling are Jay's handiwork with the dry wall mud.

And.... they are all perfectly SMOOTH.

Jay's perfectionism isn't abating any with age. We now have some very smooth patches in otherwise banged up walls. Yes, we still plan to put the "knock down" texture stuff on them all including the ceiling… so I'm not really sure why he wants to get it so perfect, but I'm not going to complain. If he wants to do it "his way" that is fine with me… mostly that he is doing it at all is wonderful.

(I also have to admit that I have my own version of perfectionism with other things... but not walls).) I think most people are SELECTIVELY perfectionistic to one degree or another.)

Along with the popcorn removal and screw hole patching, most of Naomi's stars on the ceiling are history. I can see a few faint reminders of them. The walls and ceiling are looking remarkable "white".. The other day I was getting an almost uncontrollable urge to get out the markers and spice them up a bit… but the glare Jay gave me stopped me. Some of my art work DOES faintly remain but not much.

Jay has acquired quite a collection of trowels or whatever they are called for doing his drywall "mudding" and patching. He really LIKES tools… He even found a special one for doing corners. He also found a thing that attaches to a drill motor that he thought he could use to still drywall mud.. (He buys it by the 5 gallon bucket)… unfortunately, the shaft was the wrong size for his drill and he hasn't used it. Yet. One fun part about all these specialty tools is finding where we put them the next time we need them…(like in 5 or 10 years).

Our poor vacuum cleaner has been through hell. I really should have dug the shop vac out when we started this project, but I put it off… and when I mentioned going to find it the other day, Jay said, “Forget it, we’ll be done soon enough, and then I’ll take the vacuum apart and clean it out with a compressor.” I’m thinking it might be beyond cleaning out, but we shall see. I never really liked that vacuum very much anyhow. The main problem is all that fine drywall dust that Jay is so good at generating… I try to sweep as much up as I can before I use the vac, but still, the white dust gets all inside the hoses and sticks in the little accordion folds.. I have to open it up, dust it out, bang the hose on the floor to knock the caked up dust out of it, clean the filter and so on.. OFTEN.. and then it works okay (but not great) for a little while.. like 10 minutes or so. It’s not long before the dust is coming OUT of the vac more than going into it. Oh well… I’m fairly sure I’ll be getting a new one.

Now Jay’s working on a major repair in one of the corners where the wall “rotted” at the bottom… I guess. Or the house shifted, or who knows what. Anyhow, he rejected my idea of duct tape and will undoubtedly do his signature nuke-proof repair.

Another repair that he plans to make that sort of scares me because of the magnitude of it, is the window frames. The house shifting/sinking or whatever has played havoc on those windows over the years and I think he plans to do some major work on them. I just hope it doesn't take too many months. He is still mulling over his options.. He rejected my idea of just covering them with curtains or shades and not worrying about them. (Seems logical to me.)

Yes, that is one of the windows… I stuffed the pillows in there for insulation to keep the cold out of the room.

Sometime before too long, I think he plans to put in the electrical box under where my desk will be for my computers. I know this because he bought the electrical stuff to do it with and he dug out a piece of dry wall to patch up the hole. The hole was already there… but seeing it made me think… "What a great place for an outlet for my computer equipment." Of course, just because he plans to do it soon, doesn't necessarily it means he WILL do it soon. He might get side tracked with window repair or something else. I will be patient though. Right.

Meanwhile, I will continue my routine

of sweeping, vacumming,

and offerning encouragement.