Sunday, March 24, 2013

Drowning in dust

Home improvement projects are consuming my life.  Seriously, I can't seem to stop!  HEEEEEEELP ME!

So, we fixed up the three small rooms in the basement.  And everything was great, except I still wasn't happy.  When you entered the basement, the upper part of the stairwell had no light fixture, so it felt like you were entering a creepy and scary dungeon.  I convinced John to install a light at the top of the stairs.  Then I convinced him to paint the stairwell and hang some artwork.  It looked a million times better.  But, of course, we encountered a new problem.

The stairwell looked great, but it opened up into a main area that was still unfinished.  The people who lived here before us had hung some drywall, but never applied the joint compound.  Since John and I are clueless about drywall, we were just going to leave it unfinished.  Every time I mentioned the unfinished area or showed it to a friend, everyone kept telling me how easy it was to finish drywall.

After watching a few Youtube clips, John and I decided to finish the drywall.  Although it has not been hard, it has been a time consuming and messy project.  It seems to take FOREVER for the damn joint compound to dry.  The bucket said 24 hours, but it is more like 48 hours.  And the dust!  Oh my goodness, it is everywhere.  EVERYWHERE!

I think we are going to be working on the damn basement FOREVER.  And one project just leads to another.  I keep thinking about how the main area needs new carpeting too.  But I refuse to spend any more money down there.  For now, we are just going to have to live with the remnant carpeting, which has no padding and is super ugly.

I swear, this is the last project.  I am so over home improvement.

3 comments:

antropologa said...

You are probably laying the spackle on too thickly if it takes that long to dry. And there's an awesome sanding/vacuum doohickey you can buy that eliminates the dust and makes it so fast and easy! With practice you can get sanding down to a really fast and easy thing. Hopefully you will be done with it before you have time to get good at it, though!

Carrie said...

I'm waiting for pictures! lol.

amanda said...

i love when you go on these home reno sprees!!

can't wait for pics!!