Three Squares

The thing about repairing plaster is that not only is it hard to document photographically, but it takes for effing ever. So I've had many many days of work go unnoticed here because let's face it, posting endless pictures of a wall slowly getting white is not too interesting.

Today we hit the home stretch. After fortifying ourselves with a hearty plate of beignets from Powderface, we went along the bottom of the wall: Noel using the heat gun to remove the layers of paint and wallpaper and clean out the little groove at the top of the molding, and me scrubbing.

There were all kinds of odd little situations around the edges of the room, like these chipped areas by the bay where plaster fell away when the fake wood paneling was removed. Those are harder to do because they require actual skill with the tools; a flat field can be made flat again by working it over and over, but an edge like this is eventually just going to ask you to know what you are doing with the trowel.

When I'd made all the repairs that I could do for the day, I primed a big section of the drywall (which is done, and has been done for weeks). Because we need to decide what colour to paint the room. Unfortunately, I took this picture with the last of the daylight, so we can't really decide until tomorrow.

But here are the three swatches I painted tonight. In the chips we liked Storm best, and I still like it best on the wall. Nantucket Fog is out of the running: too blue. Solitude feels too cold to me; Noel wants to see it in the daylight to be sure. The ceiling, as in the parlour, will be pink. Because I am not ashamed to admit that I like how flattering a pink ceiling is to skin tones.

Tomorrow I'll caulk and finish off plaster repair around the room. Then I can prime most of the walls.

Also up for tomorrow is stripping the wallpaper out of the bay and prepping it for paint. We've been putting it off because the bay makes a really convenient place to store tools out of the way while we work on the rest of the room. Also, it doesn't need much plaster repair, so it could be put off. But that time is over, because on Christmas we have a pile of friends coming over to help us eat an enormous ham. Nothing like a little pressure to make a home improvement project more fun, right?

Technorati Tags: painting, plaster, renovations

posted by ayse on 12/20/09