Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Crown Moulding Muddle

At this point my husband and I had been married for about eleven years. We thought we knew everything there was to know about each other. What we didn't know was that this house was about to teach us a lesson in marital politics. We started filling in the lines in the paneling with the joint compound. I was in favor of putting on several light coats and building to the right depth. He was in favor of really loading it on but only sanding once. After watching him do this a few times I felt compelled to say something about it. I didn't want lumps in my walls, nor did I want to sand each spot for an hour to smooth it out. Clearly MY way was the best way. (I was the oldest of three girls, my way was ALWAYS best, just ask my sisters.) Clearly he thought his way was the best. I ended up giving in and letting him do what he wanted to. I did my part my way, but it ended up taking forEVER to finish all the sanding. By the time we got to the ceiling tiles, the honeymoon was over with him. In the middle of pulling out the five thousand staples, he went upstairs and didn't come down again for three years. I didn't mind too much. I like to do things my way, and I'm sure I made him feel like he was getting in the way. Oh, yeah, and he had to work. Almost forgot about that.
The ceiling was a puzzle for me. Underneath the old white tiles was green bead board.
The paint was flaking and looked really old. I was pretty sure it had to have lead in it. I knew it would have to be encapsulated. I went to the hardware store and bought some Sheet Rock. That lasted about two minutes. That would be the two minutes it took me to haul it in the house. I didn't realize how heavy it was. I knew there was no way we were going to get it up on the ceiling by ourselves. We were broke and couldn't afford a drywall lift. Actually at that time I didn't even know there WAS such a thing. So back to the old tried and true. We bought new ceiling tiles. I consoled myself as I took them out of the box that at least these new ones had style. I dragged out the staple gun and put five thousand new staples in the ceiling.
Then onto crown moulding. The problem was that the room was angled. About halfway across, the ceiling began a downward slant. This made for a lot of time standing in the middle of the room just staring up. Could I do it this way?...No, that won't work...how 'bout this way...No, maybe if I turn it around...upside down maybe? I finally tried one piece. Then I was lost and never finished that project. To this day there is still just one lone piece of crown moulding in her room.
Most days I do a pretty good job of pretending it's not there, but every once in a while I just shake my head and vow that tomorrow, TOMORROW, I WILL get after it and figure out how to do that.
Two years later I was to learn that her room would have to be completely redone. All that I had done would have to be undone and then redone from the studs up, not because I had done anything wrong, but because we found out what was behind that paneling, and it wasn't good. But more on that later.

Oh, and while shopping at Lowe's yesterday, I ran across something called an "angle finder". This would really have come in handy like, oh, FOUR YEARS ago.
Oh, well.

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