adventures in skimcoating...

well, I've finally gotten off my ass and gotten to work on the kitchen (yes, the unfinished kitchen that has been unfinished for almost a year now, as we have done exactly zip on it since Thanksgiving)!

Where had we left off? Why, what a good question! We--meaning I--had stripped off about 1/3 of the wallpaper on the remaining two kitchen walls not covered with cabinets. and that was it.

First, I stripped off the remainder of the icky wallpaper, which took surprisingly little time, but still enough time and effort to remind me that WE ARE NEVER PUTTING WALLPAPER BACK UP IN THIS HOUSE. Seriously people. the freaking handstenciling was way more entertaining, and does not require stripping and scrapers and all that crap that I really really want to be done with right now.

(the house disagrees with me. I still have the spare bedroom, the powder room, and the faux green marble monstrosity on the third floor. I am not even thinking about the painted over wallpaper in the bathroom. I think it may be easier to gut that puppy to the studs. I am not kidding.)

And once the wallpaper was down, I broke up any loose plaster, secured it with plaster washers and screws and a shit-ton of fiberglass tape over the cracks, holes, gouges, etc. That took another two hours or so.

And then the skimcoating. I went through 1/3 of a 5 gal bucket of joint compound, and ran out to get another 5 gal bucket. Which I also ran through, relatively quickly, I might add. So JBB ran out for yet another 5 gal bucket. I finished up the first and primary coat, and then enlisted JBB's help to run a damp sponge over the wall to help smooth it.

(See, my uncle Bob pointed out last thanksgiving that damp sponge over drywall mud = much much less sanding. And I hate sanding. Hate hate hate. So, thanks uncle bob!)

The next am, I hit any low spots with a second coat, and again with the sponge. And voila, smooth(ish) walls with no cracks! Now I just need to prime pretty heavily to help give the joint compound a little more hardness.

We also measured for beadboard. And finally decided that yes, we will be putting about a 4 foot wainscot of beadboard (painted white) around the kitchen. Not only will this help keep the room visually unified and allow us to pick a nice bright color for the top without feeling like we're living in the circus, but it'll help protect our nice smooth walls from getting the crap dinged out of them by the insane cats and the doorhandles.

Course we gotta install it first.