The One In Which We Finish What We Started

It's occured to me that you might not have known what my wonderfully organzied laundry room looked like before we embarked on this project...

(welcome to the mess!)

Anyway, back to what we were doing. So, you've put a first and second coat of plaster on. Now, this is something like what you should be looking at.

And once the plaster is dry, you have something like this.

This same principal can be applied to those nasty cracks that form in your walls in places you don't want them to, like in the living room.

You do the same thing. You cut the crack out, making it larger (and thus giving the drywall compound someplace to sit.) Then you pile on the plaster, then scrape it flat at a 45 degree angle. Don't worry about one or two ridges, and it make take you several passes with the scraper to get a nice smooth surface. Just keep playing with it. Worst case, you add more plaster because you take off too much!

Once you are done playing with your holes (and filling them up with plaster!) you need to paint with a good paint. Start with a primer / sealer because if you don't, you'll always have this weird looking spot where the "raw" drywall is under the paint. Even if you just prime the spots you fixed, that's OK. Or use one of those new fancy pants paints with the primer built in. (That's what my paint is below, the new Behr Ultra Super Premium Extra Special Pay More For Me Because I'm New But No Where Near As Much as Benjamin Moore Aura Paint. In Linen. It looks yellow in the photos but it's actually a nice cream.

And that's that. One painted out laundry room. I'll make another post later about the new floor we're putting in tomorrow, and then again when it's actually all done. I painted the hall closet tonight... and the wall around my door (which is 18 feet high, and I only had a 15 foot ladder, I don't recommend this. It was actually pretty scary. heh.) You can check out my facebook photos if you want to see that paint job. I'm excited to finally get a bunch of the other messes around my house cleaned up, like all the popped out screws on the main stairway, the holes from the baby gates and the large hole from the gate Zachy ripped off the wall (by accident!) and that large crack by my main window, plus some little crap in the kitchen that's been there since we moved in almost four years ago!!! I like looking places and seeing painted walls, not plaster repairs. Yay! Remind me to tell you one day of the Curse of Painting my Home.. where my children always end up in the hospital whenever I try to paint at home... It has yet to strike! Yay!