Somebody KILL me please!

It was a dark and stormy night.... ok it wasn't night but this story definitely had a dark and ominous beginning. It was the 29 of December and it was time for the Christmas decorations to come down. All went well and things were packed away for another year when Tiff decided she just HAD to vacuum behind the couch. It all went down hill quickly! For those that don't know, we live in the house that Tiff's father grew up in and his father before him grew up here as well. I have heard dates from 1890 to 1910 as the building dates for the house. These were times when there was no sheet rock and apparently before the advent of Lathe and Plaster. This house was build with an outer layer of brick then a space and then an inner layer of adobe brick(which is pretty much dried mud, not glazed or fired) and then plaster directly applied to the brick. So as Tiff innocently pulled the couch away from the wall she revealed a small pile of broken plaster on the carpet. This soon led to the discovery of a large piece of plaster being held in place only by 7 layers of "Load Bearing Wallpaper". We decided that the situation must be remedied, following is the photo journal of our last month of living Hell. Please feel free to amuse your self to our misery!

A few of the "Before" Shots
We had already started removing pictures

Yes, that is 1940's asbestos filled "Cottage Cheese" ceiling
Oh Goodie!

That's right folks, 7 Layers of wall paper.
None of it came off willingly.

If you enlarge this one you can see alot of holes in the plaster on the wall by the door.
These are holes from people hanging stuff over the last century.
Like Tiffs dad said
"I guess they only guarantee plaster for 110 years, after that you're on your own"
Oh, did I mention that 3 walls of plaster gave up and fell in!
Exposing Adobe brick behind them, anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?
When the plaster fell off Tiff and I looked at each other and tried not to cry.

The blue mesh tape is so I can repair the channel I dug in the ceiling for a wire that is now supplying power to our new ceiling fan and lights.

Nothing but good times

Sheetrock and adobe brick don't adhere to one another very well. In the end, the solution was a whole lot of "Hot" mud and nails. The duct tape in this photo is for purely aesthetic purposes.

Max and Noah hopping aboard the Pain Train
Nice work Noah!

Tiffy's attempt at making me smile while I paint.

Almost done!

Here are a few shots of the finished product.

Yes those are tags on our new leather couches. I was just so damn excited to take pictures of the finished room that I forgot to take the tags off.

A great many thanks go out to Grandpa Brian for letting us live here and financing the project, Grandma Karen for her words of encouragement and for watching the kids while this project happened. Thanks to Grandma Nancy for watching kids and Thanks to Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Rick for providing the new Carpet. And thanks to Cody and Jason for all the help in the electrical department. Thanks to my wonderful wife who knows just how to motivate me into things that I hate doing, I love you. And last but certainly not least a huge thanks to D. Richard and Ryan Richard, the fine men of Thomas Brothers Drywall, for teaching me everything I know that made this whole thing possible.


This pretty much sums up how we all feel about having it DUN!