Interestingly, Isthmus House is a mishmash of drywall (made to resemble plaster) and real plaster in various places. I can wax philosophical for you another time on how much I love plaster (yay insulation, sound barriers and durability!) but today is about repair.
Specifically, when I first brought in a plaster repair company to look at saving the plaster throughout Isthmus House, they quoted me $1000-$1200 for this 9ish by 9ish room (maybe a little more). $12-$15 per square foot for what looked like okay shape to me seemed a little silly.
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| By far the worst area in the room - the corner that wasn't. Formerly covered by scrap wood. |
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| The texture in the white area was on all of the walls when we started. |
So, instead, I got to work on it. It took me about how long the pros said it would take them and may not be perfect but my costs were contained in my time and materials. And maybe laundry, but we'll get there in a little bit.
The first step was to get everything I needed. This wasn't my first time working on walls at Isthmus House so I already had most of the supplies I would need but I knew I would need a LOT more joint compound (aka spackle) than I had on hand.
So, I took a trip to Home Depot and bought a nice big bucket of the kind the plaster experts thought was best:
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| 62 pounds! Totally makes the gym time worth it when you don't have to ask for help! |
For plaster cracks to really disappear is super challenging - they'll come back eventually since they're just covered up. Digging out the cracks and mudding and taping them (like in an earlier post where my dad helped me with the seams in drywall) can help delay that process.
The first wall I started on was the easiest. With just one door and no windows, it was a lot of smoothing out minor chips, cracks and texture.
The grey in the photo is wet spackle and, as you can see, I'm using the soon-to-be-pulled-out carpet as my drop cloth. More on that in a later post!
The thing with working on walls is that it takes a long time to
1. Prep walls
2. Plaster
3. Wait for dry time
4. Sand them down to make them smooth
5. Repeat until they're perfect
6. Clean them so they're dust free
7. Prime them for paint (or use paint and primer in one)
8. Paint! (this'll happen later, once the door from the hallway is added)
The other walls weren't too bad either, although more time consuming with the addition of corners, windows and a closet.
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| One chuck of plaster that was coming off the wall that I took out for repair |
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| A work in progress on that corner - the scrap wood that was covering it is in the lower right hand corner of this picture |
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| If you look closely just over the outlet, you can see where one particularly large crack was taped up |
I think The Roommate enjoyed teasing me about what a mess I always was after working on them. Safety glasses, a quality dust mask and play clothes were important on this project!
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| This shirt is magenta when it's not covered in plaster dust! |
It took a lot of "repeats" of the steps above but here's what we ended up with:
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| Formerly the corner that didn't exist - this is the same hole removed above! |
It's funny how the walls can seem okay when you get started and how noticeable the improvements are when you're done. These walls are beautiful now and will make for a great bedroom or office when Isthmus House is done. We still have to put in a door to the hallway (didn't finish up that wall just to have a hole cut into it), add molding and pull up the carpets but it's well on its way...
Here's a little snippet of what's to come - get excited!
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