Remodel - Week 11

The Blogstress Returneth!

Well, dear reader, your remodeling blogstress is back, after a 2 week hiatus. I'm sure that you have been suffering from remodel-blog-withdrawal-pangs, but, never fear, your fix has arrived! While the events of Week 11 are fleeting, and memories of last week (12) are fading fast, what follows is the latest poopage on the project!

Week 11 - Winter Returns

Week 11 was all about drywall and flashing (flashing the roof valleys, of course, not what you're thinking - tsk, tsk). Wintery weather also made a return visit - we had a dusting of snow mid-week and the daytime highs in the upper 30's seemed positively arctic after our spring flirtation.

While Jason was only able to work outside one day due to the weather, we were fortunate to have Rudy the drywall guy with us this week. Rudy is quite the artist. During his time with us, he taped and mudded the wallboard joints leaving the smoothest walls and sharpest corners imaginable. Then he turned his wizardry to duplicating the Spanish plaster in the existing hallway. This is a lost art from days of yore, when plaster was applied over laths and then the texture was applied in various patterns.

At a party several years ago, we met this older gentleman who was a master plasterer in olden days. He told us a fascinating story about the plastering process back in his day. He said that the master plasterer would not let the apprentice touch the main walls of the house until he was satisfied that the newbie had the technique down pat. In fact, the apprentice would be relegated to a closet wall to practice until the master was satisfied that the kid knew what he was doing.

Amazingly, remnants of this practice survive in our home in a closet under the stairs that is now part of our first floor half-bath. When we first moved in, we were puzzled by the walls in this closet - why was there Spanish plaster only on parts of the wall? You can imagine how thrilled we were to learn this backstory - and at a party at that!

Meanwhile, back to the future. Rudy is quite the modern master of applying this old-time technique to today's wallboard. There was no need for him to practice in the closet - he was able to replicate our pattern on his first attempt. However, he is quite the perfectionist and when showing the results to Steve-the-husband, offered to scrape it off and start over if we didn't like it. Not to worry Rudy, we didn't just LIKE it, we LOVE it!!!

The following pix shows the Spanish plaster in the niche - the original plaster is on the right in green:

Here is a close-up of his work:

We had a painting marathon this past weekend and the new walls look fabulous in their new coats of paint...which you will see in all their glory in Week 12's blog (which I promise to complete soon).

One final note - the weekend that ended Week 11 was cold and gloomy. On Saturday, as I was standing at the kitchen sink looking out the window, wishing that spring hadn't left so soon, I noticed that the magnolia had a hammer hanging from one of its branches. Was the tree doubling as a tool rack? Was this Magnolia morphing into a new species - Magnolia-hammer-floria?

Intrigued, I braved the cold to investigate - the hammer was hanging by its claw, held in place by a flower bud. I rescued it and put it aside for Jason.

Later on, I asked Jason about it and he said he had no idea how the hammer got there - it had been hanging on a loop on his cover-alls. The only thing he could figure was that as he was taking down the scaffolding on the south side, the hammer must have dislodged from the loop, fallen and been snagged on the branch. Or maybe when he brushed against the tree, the claw of the hammer hooked onto the branch.

Regardless, I'm calling this pix:

The Hammer Tree...or Still LIfe with Hammer

Stay tuned for Week 12, coming soon to a blog near you.