We have a wall….which is sort of like We have a Pope, but not. It’s not even Pink Floyd. But it is cause for celebration, none-the-less.
If you remember, and if you don’t you’re forgiven because your life has also had its crazy moments, when I last wrote, our wall was deconstructed to the studs after removing bees and honey and going to San Diego for a wedding and coming back:
Cliff and I had a few days of rest. After all, everything was out of the office – and in our bedroom, stacked – we couldn’t find anything. So we didn’t bother. We watched television and took naps. Other than taking a photo, we didn’t look at the wall much either. And then the Sons came home and began banging and building. We made so many trips to Home Depot, I felt like I should take a blow-up mattress and just live, reaching my hand out with the credit card whenever necessary.
However, I wanted insulation in the wall since the wall no longer would consist of inch-thick plaster and I hate cold drafts on my neck, so I came home with insulation and applied same. That was my job. Younger Son is alergic to insulation and Older Son doesn’t like it much either. But he held the strips as I stapled.
And then it was The Boys turn. They bought something called hardy-board but which to me looked like old-fashioned masonite and half inch drywall and a LOT of drywall mud. I wanted a wall strong enough to hold a wall full of pictures and drywall is not so strong. And I wanted to make the wall look like the other three plaster walls in the room (not smoothe and pretty? Younger Son asked) Hense, to humor me, they added the sturdy hardy-board (I realize I may have the wrong word here or the wrong spelling (but I do the best I can with what I know) and extra tubs of mud.
So then we had a wall.
Next it was my turn again. I spent a day plastering the drywall with drywall mud to simulate plaster. It worked pretty well and gave the wall a nice texture. And while I know quite a bit about working with plaster (I re-plastered the hall a few years ago in another learning project), I knew nothing about drywall mud. But I learned. It dries way too quick and doesn’t always do what it looks like it should do. Next time.
And then we all, “all” meaning all four of us, got into the painting bit. Cliff even got involved. He’s a good painter. Me, not so much. We painted a base coat on everything which helped fill in old holes and gouges in various places (this is a 1920s built house after all), and then we added color. After a day of curing, we moved the desk in. And the computer. And then slowly, we began adding. It’s taken longer to get everything on the walls, after the paint, than it did to build the thing.
There’s still stuff piled on the desk, but I’m a writer. I have piles of stuff. But we have a room in jacaranda blue, which reminds me of the jacaranda tree outside my window when I lived in Mexico, and white trim. We have a wall. And a chair in the corner, the blue covered thing, where I can sit and write with the laptop on my lap and still look out my window at the willow.
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