A man, a plan, a mud pan

On Monday I called up a plastering contractor. He told me had just retired a couple months ago and wasn't taking jobs any more. I asked him for a referral and he opted instead to give me some advice. I told him I was using plaster of paris, which he said was "the worst thing you could use". I was too grateful for the expert advice to point out that, say, mashed potatoes would be far worse. Anyway, he suggested that I use drywall mud, joint compound, Beadex, whatever you want to call it, because it takes much longer to set and you can actually work with it.

I went to my special place this morning and bought a little tub of premixed joint compound and a mud pan, which I probably already had in the basement somewhere. Oh well.

I don't have a lot to say about it other than it went on really, really easily. The plaster sets almost instantaneously and is very hard to shape once you've got it on the wall. This stuff is going to take 24 hours to fully cure, but once it does, I can sand and finish it, no problem.

So I went berserk and did everything that needed to be done -- damage around the heating ducts, cracks in the wall joints, that enormous patch in the dining room with the topcoat missing. That large area will probably need another coat tomorrow, but other than that, I'm done with plastering.

Now I need to caulk around the door and window casings, strip and sand the mantel surface that I'm planning on staining instead of painting, and I can sand and wash the walls. Then, if the good Lord is willing, I'll paint this godforsaken place.


Big patch covered up


Flattened out


Area under the window