Mud Flinging

First – @Steve – You’ll be happy to know that we moved our little mini fridge over to the new house today (having access to a pickup truck meant we moved a LOT of other stuff too), and that it does, in fact, have beer in it.  \o/  Of course, it’s mostly bottled water and fruit, for snacks and keeping from dehydrating while doing tons of work, but there *is* beer in there too.  And a bottle of champagne, for the eventuality of us actually moving in.

Today was a whirlwind of productivity, since it was the last day that my best friend was here.  We moved a VERY FULL truckload of stuff over to the house, mowed/edged the lawn, painted a closet, painted the bathroom, painted the bedroom, and did our first experimentation with wall plastering.

You see – all that wallpaper was put directly onto the sheetrock.  It was not primed first.  This means that the wallpaper, when removed, mostly takes huge chunks of the underlying plaster with it, and in some places removes even down to the papering over the gypsum.  Our walls do not, in fact, look very lovely.  My parents had their kitchen plaster textured before they moved, and my dad had mentioned that as a possible solution to the lack of wall texture in the previously wallpapered rooms/areas.

We, however, do not have the free cash right now to pay someone to come in and plaster the walls for us (let alone do the remaining prep work, or prime and paint it afterwards).  However, we can afford a $12, 62lb, 3.5 gallon bucket of mud (aka – Drywall Mud/Joint Compound), and two trowels.

I can now say, without hesitation, that plaster texturing is fun, extremely forgiving, and rather stress relieving.  Also, the mud is cool and soft, and fun to splop onto the wall in fun patterns before smoothing it into plaster fresco that will eventually dry and be primed/painted.  We liked it so much that we will definitely be doing plaster in the kitchen/dining/entry rooms (that all have the nasty wallpaper/drywall holes).  Just need to actually finish scraping off the remaining paper bits first!

(and Melissa?  If you want to get rid of your kids some afternoon, send them over to the house.  I’ll give them a bucket of mud, dropcloth the area securely, and let them go to town.  It really is that forgiving and fun, and we can smooth it out after!)

The bedroom and master bathroom are now “done” – we need to paint the trim and get a new ceiling fan for the bedroom (this one is not only ugly, but poorly wired and making bzztbzzt noises when on), and hopefully new lighting/faucets/showerheads in the bathroom – but all of those things are “as we get there” and not “must be done prior to move-in” with the exception of the showerheads, which are NASTY, but will probably require a plumber.

The bedroom and bathroom are now a lovely shade of soft grey blue (that looks bluer and greyer in different lights).  We have enough leftover paint that the guest bath will probably end up the same color – it’s lovely and bright without being eyestabbing, and it matches our current guest bathroom towels/shower curtain.

I am completely floored at how HUGE a difference getting rid of that peach paint makes.