while georg was out, part 2

Sunday, 4 pm. This morning I got back to work around 9. My friend David and his friend Hervé came over in mid-morning to help patch the plaster. They also helped me figure out what to do about the drywall, which was a serious mess. Whoever had put up the wood paneling had glued it right to the bare, unprimed drywall. The result was big tears in the drywall where the glue took off the top layer. We didn't think that spackling and sanding bare drywall would work very well, and the torn edges were really rough.

So we went to Home Depot, where they suggested that we cover it up with contact paper and just prime and paint right over the contact paper. Luckily Hervé is tall, unlike me or David, so he had the job of hanging the contact paper. It's a little bumpy over the torn edges, but once it's been primed and painted I guess it will look ok.

To be honest I'm dubious of this as a solution to the problem. It seems like the real solution is to replace the messed up drywall with new. But there's no way that's happening this weekend. Oh well, I'll go with the contact paper for now, and if it starts to peel off the wall we can go back and fix it for real. We did at least use additional adhesive, not just the sticky that's already on it.

Anyway, after lunch with David and Hervé I got to work on the sanding. It was much easier today; I must have just been tired yesterday. I got three walls done in an hour, and would have done the fourth but it wasn't quite dry yet (Hervé went really thick with the plaster. Which is good, it will be nice and smooth, but it takes a little longer to dry).

I'm going to go buy tack cloth now. My method for quickly cleaning plaster dust off walls is to attach tack cloth to a Swiffer, and mop the dust right off the walls. By the time I get back, the last wall will be dry enough to sand. Then time to clean up, and I might even be able to prime tonight. Yay! Plus, the station is off the air right now and if they don't get it up again by tomorrow, I won't have to do my show and that will be two hours more for painting. Now comes the hard part: deciding what color to paint!