Smooth Moves

The walls and ceilings in the entry and the dining are sporting a sanded second coat, and man, are they looking fiiine. It took us the whole weekend to get here, but after a little touching up (mostly to corners), we can paint. (Fingers crossed weekend after next.)

We wrapped up the sanding after dark last night, so please excuse the poorly lit and grainy shots. I just couldn't wait to share!

I think this final picture shows the contrast the best. Notice the smooth wall on the left and the textured one on the right. (Don't mind the dust on the beam. It really is smooth, it just needs to be dusted off.)

I'll try to get some better lit shots to share with you guys tomorrow. Homer, with his affinity for smooth caves, would be proud.

And in sad news, I definitely did not take enough pics of the Boeuf Bourguignon to walk you through all the steps of that recipe. There are many! I tried to write it up, but I felt that I wasn't doing it justice. Since Julia's are big shoes to fill (literally and figuratively), I guess this means I will have to make it again. Oh darn! So I hope to highlight a quick weeknight dinner (instead of an elaborate Sunday night supper) on Thursday instead.

Here's to a painless beginning to a short week!

Monday Update: Lacking Thesis

It was a busy weekend of plastering, celebrating belated birthdays, cooking, and working.

We got the second coat of plaster up on all the walls. I am really getting excited because all of our hard work is starting to look finished; unless you look too closely, it looks as smooth as a baby's bottom, as my mom would say. Now we just have to do the ceilings, sand, and touch up in a few places, and we can fiiinnnaalllly paint. (I am hoping weekend after next.)

I would share new pics, but it pretty much looks the same as last week - pretty boring unless you are in the space - so I am just going to recycle pics.

(I can't wait to tackle a big project that evolves visually as you complete each step so I actually feel like I have something to share. We are working our buns off, but every week it feels like I have so little to show for it.)

Since this post is pretty vanilla, let me do a little over-sharing. We ended a long day of plastering with a yummy sushi dinner, and after a day of work on Sunday, we started the week off right with Julia Child's boeuf bourguignon. Delicious doesn't even begin to describe it! I am not sure if I took pictures of every step (it was a doozy), or am ready to break down this double black diamond of a recipe, but I am going to do my best. I hope to share it with you all a little later in the week.

Sorry for the rambling and almost-pictureless post. (If this were an essay, I would tell my students it needs a thesis statement. Yep. I'm a nerd.) But in the spirit of over-sharing, how was your weekend? Did it lack focus like mine?

Monday Update

We were ankle deep in dust once again this weekend. After a two weekend break from retexturing our walls thanks to having friends and family in town, it was good to charge forward with the second coat of mud. But first we had to sand the first coat of mud on the ceiling, which was about 10 times harder than sanding the walls; however, the result was the same.

Once we vacuumed up all the dust and sponged the walls, we were able to start with the second coat of mud. For this we used a different kind of mud called Topping, which was much easier to work with. Here's a close up of the still-wet second coat.

We only got as far as the walls in the entry, so we still have to do a second coat on the walls in the dining room and all the ceilings to go before we can sand and start painting in those areas (and move on to the living room and the hallway), but things are already looking 1,000% better.

Here's a before pic so you can really appreciate the difference (you can see the difference between the original orange peel wall on the left, and the first coat of mud on the right).

I am totally smitten after two coats, even though we will need to fill in some of blemishes that bubbled up with the second coat. (Yes, that means a third coat in places and more sanding. I know...)

Even so, I can already picture the walls in a perfect shade of grey. It's what keeps me going - the thought of an updated house with smooth and chic modern walls - when otherwise I would want to throw the trowel in.

What did you do this weekend? Tackle a project, or just soak up these last days of summer?

Playing With Mud

We spent the weekend working hard on step one of retexturing our walls. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot to show for it; it's slow going but I will share anyways.

It's hard to see the difference the mud makes on it's own, hence this shot of a corner. The texture on the left is the dreaded orange peel texture found throughout the house; the texture on the right is one coat of mud.

Here's a close up (that has been exposure and color adjusted, and therefore looks much more textured than it is in real life).

You can see from the scoring on the picture above that the walls are far from smooth now, but they are much closer to the desired texture than the orange peel above.

Step 2 is sanding down the walls, followed by another coat of mud and a second round of sanding...and then we can paint. I am not gonna lie, this is a slow and laborious process that results in there being more mud on us than the walls, but it is worth it already.

We have floated the entry and most of the dining room, so hopefully next weekend we can do the second coat in these areas and I can finally paint.

Meanwhile, the house looks like this.

That said, I am not sure what projects I will be able to share with you all this week. (A recipe I wanted to share tomorrow totally bombed last night.) Once we finish texturing, I will try to put a tutorial together - maybe even a video! Hey, if I can do it, anyone can.

Happy Monday!