Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Calling in the Reinforcements


Well, I said I was going to do it, and I did.



I hired a plasterer instead of redoing my DIY Drama disaster study ceiling myself.


Joe the Plasterer got started yesterday morning around 9:00 o'clock before I went off to the local hospital for a CT scan (please, God, could it please reveal that my tumor is benign!). By the time I returned a bit after 11:00, he'd chipped the rotten plaster off the flat part of the ceiling and pulled off the pieces I'd reaffixed crookedly to the sloping part over the stairs. The new metal lath was almost all up in both places, and it was time for him to mix up the perlite-enhanced gypsum plaster for the brown coat.

I came up and watched him for a time while he was putting that on. Funny, to me, to see plaster without hair, but the perlite performs the same function.

Having a noontime lunch appointment, I left Joe at the house to finish. When I returned around 2:30, he was gone and the brown coat was finished.

Last night, I got up there with my razor blade scraper and sliced off the glue nubs left from the Big Wally's plaster anchors. And scraped off some more of the loose latex paint.

Joe was back this morning and put on the first finish coat. Damn. It looks nice already.



And he put a finish coat on the places where I'd done my PlasterMagic work, yay! Hadn't expected him to; I have a whole bucket of joint compound and I'd hoped to get to that myself before he came.

He's to return tomorrow to apply a second finish coat, since today's will shrink a bit. Then again on Friday to sand it and do any final finishing.

I told Joe about the blog. "If I don't like a contractor's work, I give them a fake name. If I think they did a great job, I give their real name, if they like, and how to contact them. Free advertising."

He keeps this up, he gets the real name treatment. And yes, his given name really is Joe.

5 comments:

Karen Anne said...

Hi,

I'm new to your blog. I wish you the best in your tests.

I just wanted to note that I tried to read your blog using Firefox, and it hangs up the browser unless I type Esc to stop loading fairly early.

At first I thought it was just taking a long time to load the photos, since there are many blog entries on one page, but I tried reading it with Internet Explorer.

With IE it loads, but says Error on page. So I think whatever that error is is maybe sending Firefox into a loop.

Maybe you are using a broken widget of some kind?

AJS said...

New reader here too- and I also use Firefox but with no problem whatsoever.

I started reading your blog last month and would like to say I really enjoy it. I also wish you the best with all the hospital business.

Kate H. said...

Karen Anne, I asked a computer geek friend about it, and he thought it might be a Blogger issue. Me, I have no clue.

AJS, glad you enjoy the blog. I hope it's somewhat useful AND entertaining.

Karen Anne said...

Hi,

How long are they hanging you out to dry waiting for the test results?

(Sometimes the page loads okay and sometimes it doesn't. It seems to hang waiting for ggpht.com, which the web says is a google server. I think google owns blogger, maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, eventually it loads.)

Unknown said...

Hi Kate,
Visiting your blog after you did mine! Some of the pictures on the inside of the house - look very familiar! These homes are so much work but isn't it great in the end?! (Who am I kidding...there's never an end!)Also, wish you well...and I'm glad you hired JOE! We all need JOE the plaster guy in our lives!