Grunt work
I spent all day scraping. Scraping wallpaper, scraping paint. Scrape, scrape, scrape.
After quite a while of whaling away at the layer of backing paper above the layer of lime green paint above the layer of purple paint above the layer of painted plaster I actually want to prime, I decided it might be best to call in the chemical reinforcements.
I drove over to Queen Anne & Magnolia Paint and they recommended a can of this extremely toxic goo. I bought that, a couple buckets, and a canvas drop cloth. I stopped off at the local hardware store on the way home to buy an induction tester.
A detour about the induction tester: I am trying to figure out the magnitude of my knob & tube problem as well as I can before the electrician arrives Monday morning. I can see the wiring in the open ceiling in the basement, but the only ungrounded outlets I have are in the living room, and the offending wires don't go anywhere near there. So I thought (perhaps wishfully) that maybe the K&T wires weren't even live anymore. An induction tester will tell you if there is current running through a wire without having to cut and splice it, so I thought I'd pick one up and check to see if the wires were hot or not.
I got home and realized I had left the drop cloth on the counter at the paint store. Before returning to get it, I checked the wires in question, which were, of course, hot. Damn! My mind boggled, I wandered around the house doublechecking for ground. I did find that the outlets in the living room are in fact grounded, they just have two-prong sockets, and that the three-prong socket in the bathroom does not have a working ground. So it's probably in the bathroom, and maybe some light fixtures. If it's only in the bathroom, that will be pretty good news to me.
After this lovely ten-minute detour into the world of electricity, it was back to Scrapeathon 2004. The instructions for the solvent said to wear a mask and heavy duty rubber gloves, pour some into a jar, and use an old paintbrush to apply a coat to the surface. I didn't have a jar, but I had bought some plastic cups to apply my paint samples from. Well, the solvent ate through the cup in about 30 seconds. "Boy, that was dumb," I thought as I raced to drop the leaking cup into a bucket. I worked for a while pouring a little bit directly from the can onto the brush and spreading it around on the wall. It only seemed to remove the top layer of paint. Just scraping away at the dry stuff, I was able to get a few layers at a time, so I went back to that.
I scraped and scraped and scraped and scraped and noticed that the areas I had put solvent on a couple hours earlier were coming off the wall like it was nothing. I went to Safeway looking for a mason jar, settled on a Pyrex cup, and returned home to cover the walls in paint stripper.
I alternated applying solvent and scraping for a while when I ran out of solvent. It was just after 8pm. Of course I wasn't going to get away with a day of working on the house without a visit to Disneyland. I returned with a gallon of gunk and set to covering the dining room walls in it.
A coat of solvent working its way in
I scraped and scraped and scraped until I could scrape no more and finally called it quits at about 11:30, leaving a huge mess of paint and wallpaper fragments behind. Once I've crammed the paper bits into more trash bags, the shop vac should make quick work of the paint chips and dust.
Big mess
Remaining tasks:
I am having a lot of fun working on the house. Even tedious and repetitive tasks, say, scraping the walls for hours and hours, aren't too bad. It would be nice to have another person around to help out and chat with; it can feel a bit solitary to scrape at the walls for 8 or 10 hours by oneself. I have a stereo set up so I can listen to music while I work, which helps, but I think the real secret of staying motivated and on task is that I planned the project very thoroughly. I always know where I am and what's coming next. It can be hard to feel like you're accomplishing a lot when there is an undefined amount of work ahead of you.
For me, there is a defined amount of scraping tomorrow: lots and lots of it.
After quite a while of whaling away at the layer of backing paper above the layer of lime green paint above the layer of purple paint above the layer of painted plaster I actually want to prime, I decided it might be best to call in the chemical reinforcements.
I drove over to Queen Anne & Magnolia Paint and they recommended a can of this extremely toxic goo. I bought that, a couple buckets, and a canvas drop cloth. I stopped off at the local hardware store on the way home to buy an induction tester.
A detour about the induction tester: I am trying to figure out the magnitude of my knob & tube problem as well as I can before the electrician arrives Monday morning. I can see the wiring in the open ceiling in the basement, but the only ungrounded outlets I have are in the living room, and the offending wires don't go anywhere near there. So I thought (perhaps wishfully) that maybe the K&T wires weren't even live anymore. An induction tester will tell you if there is current running through a wire without having to cut and splice it, so I thought I'd pick one up and check to see if the wires were hot or not.
I got home and realized I had left the drop cloth on the counter at the paint store. Before returning to get it, I checked the wires in question, which were, of course, hot. Damn! My mind boggled, I wandered around the house doublechecking for ground. I did find that the outlets in the living room are in fact grounded, they just have two-prong sockets, and that the three-prong socket in the bathroom does not have a working ground. So it's probably in the bathroom, and maybe some light fixtures. If it's only in the bathroom, that will be pretty good news to me.
After this lovely ten-minute detour into the world of electricity, it was back to Scrapeathon 2004. The instructions for the solvent said to wear a mask and heavy duty rubber gloves, pour some into a jar, and use an old paintbrush to apply a coat to the surface. I didn't have a jar, but I had bought some plastic cups to apply my paint samples from. Well, the solvent ate through the cup in about 30 seconds. "Boy, that was dumb," I thought as I raced to drop the leaking cup into a bucket. I worked for a while pouring a little bit directly from the can onto the brush and spreading it around on the wall. It only seemed to remove the top layer of paint. Just scraping away at the dry stuff, I was able to get a few layers at a time, so I went back to that.
I scraped and scraped and scraped and scraped and noticed that the areas I had put solvent on a couple hours earlier were coming off the wall like it was nothing. I went to Safeway looking for a mason jar, settled on a Pyrex cup, and returned home to cover the walls in paint stripper.
I alternated applying solvent and scraping for a while when I ran out of solvent. It was just after 8pm. Of course I wasn't going to get away with a day of working on the house without a visit to Disneyland. I returned with a gallon of gunk and set to covering the dining room walls in it.
A coat of solvent working its way in
I scraped and scraped and scraped until I could scrape no more and finally called it quits at about 11:30, leaving a huge mess of paint and wallpaper fragments behind. Once I've crammed the paper bits into more trash bags, the shop vac should make quick work of the paint chips and dust.
Big mess
Remaining tasks:
- Apply solvent to living room walls
- Scrape living room walls
- Steam and scrape leftover adhesive from walls
- Replace electrical outlets and switches
- (Figure out how to) detach light fixture in dining room
- Fill holes in wall with plaster
- Caulk moldings and corners
- Spackle dents and cracks
- Sand everything smooth
- Wash walls
- Prime walls and trim
- Tape and apply tinted primer for dining room
- Lots of taping and painting
- Replace all cover plates and heat registers
- Clean up the war zone
I am having a lot of fun working on the house. Even tedious and repetitive tasks, say, scraping the walls for hours and hours, aren't too bad. It would be nice to have another person around to help out and chat with; it can feel a bit solitary to scrape at the walls for 8 or 10 hours by oneself. I have a stereo set up so I can listen to music while I work, which helps, but I think the real secret of staying motivated and on task is that I planned the project very thoroughly. I always know where I am and what's coming next. It can be hard to feel like you're accomplishing a lot when there is an undefined amount of work ahead of you.
For me, there is a defined amount of scraping tomorrow: lots and lots of it.
posted by Ficus at 11:35 PM
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