Monday, December 1, 2008

An old fashioned Brooklyn barn-raising

Once again - saved by my friends. I've been trying to work on the dining room forever, with a goal of having it "finished" for Thanksgiving. The brain and the brawn did a ton of work - but there was still a ton left to do. Once we got back from Nationals (and recovered from the party), we had 10 days to finish the sanding of the patched walls and ceiling, fill any spots that needed help (and then re-sand), and prime and paint the walls, ceiling, and moldings. Anything else that got done would be icing on the cake.

Everything was going according to the master plan (even though I scheduled myself to sand while hungover - dumb, dumb, dumb... but effective!) until some of the skim coating started pulling away from the evil wall. (It's evil because it needed so much work). Then it needed special primer (which smelled like painting with nail polish remover!), another layer of compound, which needed more sanding, which needed more priming... All of which had to be squeezed in during the week after work so that we'd have time to paint! It was only managed thanks to one very determined friend...

And then the weekend rolled around, with another layer of primer necessary, and all the painting. So - friends to the rescue yet again. A bunch of people came over on a chilly Saturday, and did amazing work. By the end of the day on Sun we had the entire dining room painted, the loose paint from the bathroom chipped off and the bathroom primed, the linoleum up on the dining room floor (that one was all Baj, great work!), and the furniture in the dining room! Scraped in under the wire. Thank heavens for amazing friends, yet again!


So we went from here:
From Dining Room
to here:
From Dining Room
Slide show of the mass effort: