The latest house project (November/December 2004) was replacing the ceiling in the library/dining room. Like the rest of the ceilings in here, it's some sort of plaster and it's starting to deteriorate. Dirk wanted to replace the ceiling in here first, before tackling the ceiling in the living room, which will be a major PITA to do. But it badly needs doing, as the ceiling is really peeling off and looks wretched. He did learn a lot from doing the ceiling in the library, which was why he started with a smaller room.
5 thin (quarter inch) pieces of sheetrock were used for the new ceiling. One of Dirk's friend's, Larry, came over to help with the mud part and gave some helpful advice as well. But before they got to that part, Dirk had to go through some really nasty stuff. He finally found a project around here that was worse than tearing out the pee-saturated carpet, which was tearing off the old ceiling.
We could not figure out why the smoke stains were coming back through the ceiling since it had 2 layers of Kilz up there, as well as 2 more layers of white paint. Well, it wasn't smoke! But rodent pee! Major ick! We found this out after Dirk started peeling off the plaster, when a ton of rodent poop fell down. It was totally gross and beyond words. Fortunately we had covered the bookshelves and cabinets with some really nice linen dropcloths. Dirk would pull down the ceiling for a while, take a break and then I'd come in with the vacuum cleaner to suck it all up. Fortunately the cats stayed out of the room, so I didn't have to contend with them coming and going through all that crap (literally!). After we were all through with that lovely part of the project, I washed the dropcloths as they reeked of rodent droppings. Totally gross.
Here the ceiling is partly ripped off. You can see the dropcloths over the one cabinet and the bookshelves (to the left). We also covered up the doorway openings so plaster dust and all that would be a bit more contained.
Here's a better shot of those wood slats that are used for the ceiling. This house was built in the late 1930's and these slats are in the walls as well. Dirk also sprayed 34 cans of expanding foam (that's the white stuff you can see in the ceiling) into the gap between the ceiling slats and the floorboards of the attic, which is where the rodents are scampering around in. We've also noticed that the room is a bit warmer since he added the foam. (There are now traps up in the attic, but so far no takers.)
Here's a picture of all the gross poop that fell down on the floor, the daybed and everywhere else within this room. I also had to vacuum the ceiling to get stuff out from in between the slats. Again, totally gross. And something we'll find in probably every room that we replace the ceiling in (eventually the entire house will have new ceilings).
The next part of the project was for Dirk to measure where the support beams were, so he could screw in the sheetrock properly. That's what those black lines are - measurements for where the beams would be. Once you put the sheetrock up on the ceiling, you're unable to see where those support beams are. The handy dandy home repair reference book from Home Depot gave us that tip, as well as building a T-frame so I could help hold up the sheetrock while Dirk put the screws in (that's what the wood on the front right is for).
Here's the ceiling with the sheetrock up and mud applied. You may note that the dropcloths are now held up with huge hunks of wood instead of duct tape. The tape ripped off the paint, which of course had to be touched up later on.
Ceiling partly painted with primer. The bookshelves are directly underneath, to give you an idea of where you are in the room.
And here's the finished ceiling! Yep, those are supposed to be fluffy white clouds on the sky blue ceiling! I decided I wanted to have some fun with this room and this is the first stage of that. Boy, did we learn a few things about colored paint when doing this ceiling though. When I brought home the paint I thought it leaned a tad bit too much to the lavender color scale from what I had seen in the store. But I figured it was due to different lighting, so I started brush painting the ceiling. Dirk came home that night and roller painted a second coat, which looked more sky blue than what I had applied. He then brush painted along the corners, but got interrupted due to dinner and friends coming over. The next day he finished up that area (over the bookshelves and one of the cabinets), but the paint was even bluer this time around. Very frustrating, to say the least.
So, the lessons learned here were:
1. Be sure to thoroughly mix the paint up after you get home, even though
the store had just mixed it a few hours earlier (but not well enough, I guess).
2. Don't stop in the middle or end of applying paint, but continue to
cover the entire surface, regardless of what happens, since the paint will
settle overnight and when you mix it up it'll look different.
Hey, at least we learned from it and in a small area that you can't see very easily now that the books go up to the ceiling in that area and model horses are almost to the ceiling on top of that cabinet.
This is the area I first painted clouds in, over the daybed. As you can see Dirk still needs to put up the molding. I wasn't sure if I would like the cloud effect or not, but it turns out I do. I like laying on the daybed and looking up at the ceiling. The clouds look even better when you see them at an angle, going across the room. And they really look like real life fluffy clouds if you take off your glasses while you're looking! Hey, fuzzy turns into fluffy quite easily. HA!
My next step for the ceiling is to rubber stamp a Boeing 747 plane up there. I figured that would be appropriate since I like to stamp and Dirk works for Boeing. I'd like to stamp a 737, since that's the plane he works on, but my friend with the airplane stamps doesn't have one (she's a huge 747 fan though). I might even add in another plane or two, depending upon what she has (she's bringing them over this Sunday, 12/12). Photo will be added when that phase gets done.
We also discovered that when we touched up the white areas where the duct tape had removed paint, that it doesn't match the rest of the wall. The walls were spray painted white and of course the paint going on with a brush looks different. Yet another lesson learned. But we couldn't spray paint with everything else in the room. Some of the areas are covered up by model horses and books. And for the rest - I got Dirk to agree that I can paint it a different color than white! Yea!
When we moved into this house and started fixing it up, we agreed to paint the walls and ceiling white to lighten it up in here, since it was so dark and gloomy. Well, I've always been sick of white walls due to living in too many apartments over the years. And after almost 2 years of these white walls, I'm getting sick of them again. Dirk wants to keep them white, so I'm trying to change his mind about the walls. I have been able to paint the bathroom and kitchen how I want, but I want more! (Of course!)
When we discovered that the touched up areas didn't match, I mentioned to Dirk that "I guess that means I have to paint it a different color" and he agreed! I about fell down and told Jack (one of my cats) that he was a witness. Lotta good that'll do me, huh? However, it's a good thing Dirk agreed as I had already bought two different colors of purple tinted pinks (dark and lighter) to try some sponge painting along one of the walls. It's something I've never done, so we'll see how it goes. I'm not sure when I'll get to painting, which is why there aren't any photos showing that phase of the project. But when I do, they'll be slapped up here for everyone else to see.
So, sky blue ceiling with white clouds. Something that folks will either like or dislike, just like the fern covered kitchen cabinets. But, I figure it's our house and we're having fun with it. And when I get tired of it (way after Dirk does, I'm sure!), I can always paint over it.