All and more than you could ever want to know about plaster

The day we got the keys to our new old house I was so excited! I started stripping all of the walls of their lovely 70's wallpaper. The wallpaper, I soon discovered was covering severly cracked lead paint covered plaster walls. Whew that is a long description! Determined to solve the problem and using the obsessive research skills that run through our family I set to work on the computer learning the proper way to patch pathetic plaster. (Say that phrase 5 times fast :P 'patch pathetic plaster')

Anywho... I taught myself how to repair the problem and I quickly set out for that amazing friend to fellow fixer-uppers, Home Depot. So my local shopping experts guided me to the right screws and tools. (This was my first intro to this store and we are, by now, fast friends. I know at least half of the employees and they recognize me and grin a little now everytime they see me. I know they are thinking,"There comes the woman who pays all of our wages!!"

Our plaster work began in the Northeast bedroom. Our repairs ended up taking about 3 months. Luckily, Dad and Mom came to the rescue and helped us make it a livable happy space. They were lifesavers. The room looked good and clean and safe (minus the ominous electrical wiring)

Now, lets delve into the amazing world of plaster....  For those of you who are curious about how to repair plaster cracks I will tell you or you can run it through a search engine. When plaster has cracked and separated from the lovely lathe slats, one must run screws along both sides of the crack. Then you must carve out a v shape into the crack. This groove allows the patch to stay.

Most websites recommended using plaster of paris to repair. Let me just tell you, that stuff is a pain in the patella! It hardens so fast that we couldn't even get it to the wall before it set. We looked like a couple of overeager beavers running back and forth from the kitchen sink (which was at the time working) trying to patch up our dam (did I spell that right?) before the mud dried out. We finally gave up our plaster adventure and used joint compound which was much easier. It was still kinda thick, but oh so much better. I have since learned that you are supposed to add water to joint compound and thin it out a little. Who knew??? Really who did?! Grrrr. After getting the first layer of compound on, then you use drywall tape and another wider layer to finish off. Eek!

Wow, I know that was an overall boring paragraph, but I hope to save someone a little pain in the discovery process. (This one is for you Allie!)

While still on the topic of plaster let me tell you how amazingly fun and theraputic it was to bash all of the plaster out in our bathroom. Now, I will devote a whole entry in this blog to our bathroom and what fun that has been (because our bathroom has earned its own blog entry), but for now lets talk about the lovely green and pink plaster walls with the fake pink plastic tiles. As we were working on the bathroom we took the time to knock off the plastic tiles, just to find that there were mold problems and standing water in our bathroom plaster. We knew it needed to come out, but I was quite intimidated about it. Luckily, our neighbor Lance came to the rescue! He started tackling it. He took the small sledge hammer and started pounding it away. I got in there with him and the wall really started giving way. I found all of the stress lightened as I bashed large holes in the walls with my hammer. (no pent up aggression problems here at all!) Knocking out all those walls took less time than repairing the cracking in the first room, but of course now we have to hang drywall. :) (Helpful hint: Use hammer and knock plaster in a large square. Then you can pull on the plaster and it will come off in large, toe-breaking pieces. No, really, I almost broke a couple of toes :) Again that was for Allie!

I will close this somewhat boring and tragic plaster section by saying, I HATE PLASTER! I can't believe people used to take the time to put it up. I wish I had invented sheetrock. I am sure whoever did is filthy rich by now. So good luck on your plaster adventures, may you never find plaster, and may God bless you and keep it far from you!


*BTW: The reason that I chose the above picture of the plastered person is because it resembled Lance and I so much as we left the plaster and drywall zones.  One the dusty days we looked like we had left the human race!

In the Beginning. . .

This is the house in question and yes that is a spruce tree trying to eat it!

There was a naive man and woman who fancied themselves intelligent enough to delve into the home buying market. The woman (beautiful witty me, of course) and the man (my handsome analytical husband) looked for hours, days, and months for that house that would fulfill all of their dreams. They were determined to find a mortgage that they could handle without having too much work to do inside the house. The woman researched about homebuying until she was blue in the face. (I guess this is a good place to switch to first person. :)

I could tell you the ins and outs of short sales and foreclosures and interest rates and even the importance of being preapproved for your loan. I could tell you how to tell if a roof had reached its life and what to look for structurally to tell if the foundation was bad. Luckily for me my lender insisted that we pay for a home inspection to ensure we purchased a stable home. Ah, the wonderful home inspector who would walk through everything for me and solve all of my problems. He would find everything wrong with the house so that we would be protected and know what we were getting into.

So, after months of searching and two home purchases falling through (and paying for two inspections) my heart settled on a cute and well loved home built in 1920. I could tell that the woman who lived there cared about the home. I was so enthused by the quaintness of the home that nothing would dissuade from finding a way to buy it. I was nervous about the next step, which was the home inspection. I was sure that there would be something terribly wrong and we would have to move on because of the age of the house.

The inspection day came and went and the inspector gave us great news. Even though the water heater had reached its age, the furnace was brand new, the roof was no more than 5 years old, some of the plumbing had been updated (with the mention of copper pipes... cue the oohs and ahhs here), the foundation looked to be in good condition, and even though not all of the wiring was grounded it appeared that the electrical system was updated. With a nod from our intelligent and lifesaving inspector we moved forward with our purchase as rapidly as possible. We were convinced we were getting an amazing deal because all we would have to do is update the walls and flooring and we would be good to go.

Now, for those of you who have heard anything of our adventures in the last few months I am sure you are already rolling on the floor with fits of laughter. ;) Those of you who don't know our fun, get ready for a bumpy ride.