Please Excuse Our Dust

UPDATE:

Work time since last post: 9 hours, 45 minutes
Accomplishments: Office plaster repairs are primed and the whole room is ready to paint. I've re-plastered the bathroom ceiling and damaged wall areas with two coats of joint compound; also sanded in between and after the final layer.
Fancy before and after shots to share: NONE

Sigh...I'll just keep on plastering and sanding...

However, I'm thrilled to share this little gem of a self-portrait that I took last night after I finished sanding Layer Two of plaster.

Forget an 80's come-back...this is how we bring sexy back, baby!! My little portrait actually does give a sneak peak at some of our progress. See the ceiling above my lovely head? It used to look like this:

Improvement, no?!?

(And my technical side note...that respirator is really pretty awesome. It may look, uh, ridiculous, and feel really hot and sticky under there, but the feeling of plaster dust coating your teeth is NOT cool. My lungs are much happier because of this little purchase. And Jeff has one too, so we can totally be a super cute couple in our matching respirators.)

Master of the Plaster

Or as Jeff told me when he first walked into the office on Friday..."You look plastered." HA! I married a funny man. 

This past weekend and week have been all about repairing damaged plaster, which I was pleased to learn is as easy as frosting a cake. And then sanding it. And re-frosting it. And sanding it. Then vacuuming.

I started with a couple of walls in the office and part of the ceiling that looked like this:

(Look closely at the left picture on the upper part of the column for the bulging paint. It looks more dramatic post-scraping.)

I was very pleased and surprised to discover that there isn't horrible water damage behind the flaking paint - just a concrete wall that at some point in the past clearly had some water behind it. Jeff believes that one of the leaks was repaired during a different home repair, and the other was (hopefully) fixed when we changed out and insulated the exhaust fan/outlet. Since we couldn't find any current problems or moisture in the walls, we figured we'd just repair the wall, cross our fingers, and see what the future holds.

And you here have it - a completely smooth wall (and ceiling - can you even see the repair?) that is just crying for a little primer and paint. Well...it's not completely smooth. My technique could definitely use some work. Thankfully these are old walls with many, many bumps and bruises, and we'll actually have to add some texture in the paint to make the patches blend with the rest of the walls. Despite the bumps, I'm really proud of these here walls. I made those walls. Ok, I realize that I didn't...but they were broken and I fixed them. Not some random construction dude who has repaired a million walls...me. The speech therapist.

This led me to the realization that I'm really starting to get excited about everything that we're doing here and what the Villa is finally starting to become. I've been spending quite a bit of time here after work in the evenings, and it's given me plenty of quiet time to do some thinking. (Because, yes, country stations really do play the same song a million times, and I'm too lazy to attempt to find a new station on the 80's era boom box that otherwise keeps me company. How did we change channels before digital? Crazy.) I'll be very honest here - I was initially not excited to be leaving the Beach House, my first house, the house where I figured out how to be a self-sufficient adult. But all this time and energy and love that I get to put into the Villa has started to turn it into my new house. Our new house. And in the silence that's filled only by 220 grit sandpaper smoothing out my new wall, I've started to daydream a little bit about all that these walls might see in the next several years. We're totally bonding. I like it. 

Don't get me wrong. I'll still bawl like a baby on the day the U-Haul takes my belongings away from the Beach House - amid promises to  Jeff that "no, really...I'm excited..." - but each little bit of work that I'm doing makes the excitement for *our* house grow bigger and bigger. Here's to the next few months of crazy work on Our Villa.

Demolition Day!!

It finally happened....our first big demolition day!!! We have been working away on some smaller tasks that aren't really picture-worthy - such as painting closets (which, of course, requires emptying out the closet, gasping at the amount of stuff that was in the closet, trying to quickly reduce the contents, and then consolidating what remained after our first go-through), researching the best methods for doing some small repairs, attempting to complete said repairs, and sitting around stressing about how much we still have to do (oh wait, that's just me...)

But - Monday! Jeff was off work and after a couple of quick "we need some advice" conversations, we had two experts volunteering to come help tackle a few major projects. My dad drove in to assist with ripping things off walls and floors, and our brother-in-law, Chuck, offered to "swing by" from Kalamazoo (2 hours away!) to do a little electrical work. Within an hour or two, the bathroom went from this:

To this!

 

Our general plan goes like this: The tub and tiling is pretty standard but in good shape, so we're going to keep it. It needs a little re-caulking, but that's minor and will save a tremendous amount of money. Same with the toilet - needs a new seat but it's basically what we would buy again if we were to replace it (aka - unnecessary expense). What we WILL do is paint the vanity white to match the trim, replace the hardware, and get a new sink/counter. Same with the medicine cabinet on the wall - lighten it up and change the hardware. The mirror and lighting will get switched out.We actually like the pattern on the floor (it fits the style of the house), but it's linoleum. Ripping that up and tiling the floor will be one of the biggest projects in the room. (We're even thinking of installing a heated floor - oh la la!!!) And, of course, all the wall damage will be repaired and the whole thing will get a nice coat of paint (or several coats, as we have been discovering...). The last big project will be repairing the ceiling. Chuck and Jeff replaced the exhaust fan with the QUIETEST fan on the market. It's pretty incredible. It also left a big hole in the ceiling, so we'll need to fill that in, and then deal with the peeling paint issue from the previous post. I'm learning that the ceiling fix shouldn't be too bad - but I'm not looking forward to all the overhead sanding and plastering that will be going on in the next couple of weeks.

You might remember that the Villa has just one bathroom - and you just saw its current state. So...how will we *ahem* use the facilities while we're over there working?

Welcome to the basement, where the random toilet (on a concrete slab up two steps) resides. This lady is NOT too thrilled about it, but such is life. We're hoping to enclose this into a half bath sometime down the line. For now, we'll maybe rig up a little shower curtain around it and get good at yelling "Don't come down here!!!!"