Circa1972 vs 1906
We bought an old house, now I'm becoming an expert spackler.
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I finally accomplished a home project. It has been too long. This was my Mother’s Day present from 2013. I couldn’t deal with it sitting in it’s box any longer and just went for it. Be GONE hideous 70’s frosted ball of dust. Be gone!
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Video reblogged from Forgotten Species
Possibly my favourite thing you’ve ever written, Blake.
While driving back from our show on Thursday a car pulled up next me at a light, absolutely blasting this Olivia Newton John song. I was letting its mellow message of serenity gently lap over me like a blow dried wave when the chorus hit: Have You Never Been Mellow?
I was thinking, yes, I have been mellow. But then I realized she was asking if I had never been mellow. And the answer is that although I am not often mellow, I have been mellow at times, so no I have not never been mellow. But she is not asking if I had never not been mellow, just if I had never been mellow, or if I had been not never unmellow. I was pondering the existential intricacies of this question when my brain exploded all over my dashboard. I am writing this to you from heaven.
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For reference:
Use THIS respirator filter set for particulate. IE; scraping the icky crap off the wall, sweeping, vacuuming, mixing cement.
Use THIS respirator filter set for those nasty chemicals. IE; muratic acid, the actual mixed concrete, and the waterproofing paint.
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I cannot imagine this being an exciting transformation to anyone OTHER than myself. But, when you start with something as crap-tastic as what I started with, ending with a clean white surface seems like a monumental achievement.
Step 1: Spray painted the offending leaking areas
Step 2: Scraped the loose bits, and washed the walls with muratic acid.
Step 3: Applied hydraulic cement to offending areas (twice).
Step 4: After doing the second coat of hydraulic cement, I started the waterproof painting, careful to go around the new wet cement while it dried.
Step 5: A uniform first coat of waterproofing paint is applied.
The second coat will have to wait a couple weeks. Then, the floor will get sanded, cleaned, primed and painted, too. Just thinking about how much more work needs to happen there sort of negates the joy of how much has been accomplished. I need a clone. One I can just send about the house to do my bidding. “Parge the walls, Cinderella!” “Paint the floor, Cinderella!”
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No, just waterproofing the basement with my respirator on. Glam.
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So, it has been a while. I had a baby. There were things to do more important than home improvement. My House found that amusing. Amusing that I would put a tiny human life in front of the House’s needs. In order to disabuse me of that notion, it decided that the west wall of the basement would start leaking during storms. I had just pulled all the weeds growing along the cement on that side of the house. This made House….very….angry.
Ahhhhhh, leaks turned into floods, and that turned into a lot of mopping and wiping and cleaning at weird hours after storms. Time to parge the west wall. wah wah wah.
So, the east wall was done a couple years ago, the north wall and floor of the laundry room done while I was pregnant. Time for the west wall. This wall is contained inside “The Gimp Room”. Named for the odd collages along the walls and inside the cabinets. It is merely the room I store all my cans of paint in, but it was time.You can see the “before” here. This shot gives you some of the insane collage, along with where the coal used to be shoveled into the fireplace, and the sad, sad, leaking wall.
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Here’s a better “Before” & “After” set of photos of the nook project.
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THE NOOK! This entryway area has been sort of a catch all. I have always wanted a proper mudroom, entryway, etc. But, there isn’t much room in this tiny footprint. To utilize the space a bit better, I removed the little dressing table that I had in the nook and temporarily displaced Emma’s litter box. Time for a nook bench! I took a cue from the adjacent bathroom and adorned the “floating” bench with beadboard and chair rail and matched the paint. I made friends with my miter saw and taught myself how to cut a self-returning miter cut for the edge. The edges are decorated with my favourite egg & dart trim and I’ll eventually get a little curtain sewn for under the bench - as Emma’s litter box will be discretely tucked back under the bench. Pretty pleased with the results, it is great to have a place to sit down to put your winter boots on. Just in time too, it snowed several inches last night!
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When we bought this house, nearly two years ago, the downstairs bathroom was creamsicle orange, had oodles of melamine shelving with plastic brackets, nasty dirty blinds, and it even had multiple cheap mirrors so that you could stare at yourself while you were sitting on the john. I had big plans for the wall of the toilet nook, but those plans took quite a while to get around to. I’m pretty pleased with the wall colour, the tile job, the floating shelf, et al. Basically, all we need to do is get new towels as my old ones look so dingy now!
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Soooooooooo close to being done with the laundryroom section of the basement. This project has been an ongoing debacle for well over a year now. I’ve had to parge the walls in sections, as I’ve gotten things moved. UGL DryLok is my hero. The walls were all scraped, then acid etched to remove the efflourescence, washed again, set up with the dehumidifier for several days and then sealed with hydraulic cement and painted with DryLok. phew…. And that’s JUST the foundation walls! I primed all the wood walls, acid etched the basement floor, primed and painted the floor with the Valspar floor paint. All the second hand cabinets we got from D’s parents were painted white and brought in and placed under my pegboard. We covered those with the white melamine countertop for a nice work surface. I’ll be excited to have a few minutes now to actually ORGANIZE all my tools and hardware on that pegboard wall. I got over to Menards to stock up on some more metal pegs. I am SO Grandfather’s Grandaughter! Finally, the basement has a useable tool surface and I can clear off my designated laundry folding table for, uh, LAUNDRY FOLDING! Woo hoo!