Baby Sister's room-patch, plaster, priming phase

Well, this weekend we made some great progress.  We greeted the weekend by fueling up with some Case Study Coffee and Bridgetown Bagels and then got to work.  First up, we loaded our car (wish I had a picture) completely with baby stuff for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law that we have had since their shower that was at our house in early March as well as a rocking chair that we don't need.  Then Steve and his brother moved all of our bedroom furniture to the basement.  Next, they loaded a dresser (an Ethan Allen dresser that belonged to Steve when he was young) that we don't need into Steve's brother's car for their nursery. 
We were left with a much lighter house and an empty bedroom.

Steve was a rock star and got to work while I went to run baby errands with my sis-in-law.
We initially thought he would only need to patch two little spots where the plaster was in poor repair. 

Boy were we wrong.  Steve found multiple spots where the plaster just started to crumble when he touched the wall or removed picture rail.  He removed the picture rail as we forgot to allot for the detail trim over the doors and windows when we installed the picture rail.  The picture rail probably need to be ~1/4" lower.  We plan to put in the trim detail above the doors and windows before baby sister arrives. 

Steve has now patched all the areas where the plaster was majorly failing (we hope anyways).  He has also primed everything (including where we closed off a door to the kitchen-shown above) except one last area he patched last night. 

To repair the plaster, Steve first would scrape out the plaster/paint until it stopped falling away from the wall, then he applied pink plaster weld to the wall and let it dry.  Then he mixed up a small amount of plaster with water until it was sort of the consistency of pancake batter-just thin enough that it won't majorly drip.  He applied it in thin layers using a large metal plaster trowel. 

Not a fun project but much needed.  Hopefully we will have the ceilings and walls all painted and ready to be filled (even if the trim work isn't complete) by the end of next weekend. 

I hope to get you some pictures of our lovely basement lair in the next couple days.

Plaster all finished

Thanks to John MacNab plastering, we have one more project crossed off the list. 

entryway

entryway

Ben's room finished by the end of day 1-he skimmed the whole wall so it would have a nice, even appearance

Ben's room again

front entryway

our bedroom

This is how the project looked on Monday night.  The blue is Plaster Weld-a coating that helps plaster bond to surfaces-needed as he was bonding to regular ol' drywall (not blue board, which is made for plaster) as well as paint.

wrong sand texture-too fine

sand texture used in our living room, dining room and entryway

John was finished with the plaster by Tuesday afternoon, however he realized (after completing the entryway and dining room) that he used the wrong sand texture for the plaster

Ben's room-all the skimmed plaster dried quickly but the plaster over the covered door area is still not dry.  Bummer as Steve was hoping to prime everything today.

our bedroom-a great match.  After completing most of the plaster patch, he went over the patch with a paint roller coated in plaster so that the texture of the walls would closely match the patch (the walls have many, many layers of paint on them)

So he returned Weds and finished up.  He was even kind enough to patch 2 cracks at no extra charge!  I would highly recommend John!

down 2 doors

 

Last August, I wrote about us closing off the door the led from the kitchen to our bedroom-why they had it there in the first place, we'll never know. Midnight snacks?  I am tapping in on those right about now being 23 weeks preggo.

I also wrote about planning to close the door from Ben's room to the entry way.  Now, I can see why that door was originally put in.  Maybe a  door leading to a business out of the house?

entry way-boy, does this look different

Ben's room-the plaster guy plans to skim the entire way to make the texture even being that this wall probably has 10 layers of paint.

Anyways, the day is officially here.  Steve spent the earlier portion of Saturday adding 2x4s to the doorway between Ben's room and the front entry way and then patching in drywall on Sunday.

And here is the drywall patch in our room. 

And while were at it, we should patch that big hole between the kitchen doorway and the stairs

While we would have normally used blue board (a super-sturdy type of drywall type material made for coating plaster over), we went to patch and only had scraps of it.  It is not the sort of material you can just buy on Super Bowl Sunday from Home Depot, sooooo 5/8" drywall it was.  The plaster guy said it was fine based on the nature of the job.
We used blue board for all of the plaster work we did in the living room and dining room when we first moved into our house.
So today the plaster guy comes.  His name is John MacNab.  Several local bloggers highly recommended him-thanks.  I typically get multiple bids but I was told his prices are the best around and let's admit it, I was low on energy when I booked him just two days after Christmas-today was his earliest appt.!

Action Shots! Ben asked me to take his picture while I was taking pictures of the drywall.  Silly lil' man!

Hopefully I will have more pictures tomorrow.  Looking forward to getting these rooms back in order!