Alternately whining and gloating- a ceiling re-do

          Ordinarily I consider myself a non-whiner, but the first week in August was an exception. When the ceiling replacement crew didn’t show one afternoon as promised, uh, scheduled, I waited. Waited. Yawned. Drank more coffee because I couldn’t take my usual afternoon nap.

          He’d accidentally broken a window, which I had warned the supervisor about, since the ancient glass was thin and had lost a lot of caulk in the frames. When quitting-time came the day before, I whined inwardly about not getting a nap, drank more coffee, tried to perk up and work at something until ten o’clock. I’d texted the supervisor, who hadn’t heard about the window and didn’t know why the crew didn’t show. 

              The first night without anything in the window but the screen, I jury-rigged a temporary cover of Schwan’s bags and duct tape.

The next morning, as the foreman guided their pickup-hauled, long equipment trailer into the front yard, and the four-person crew bailed out of the cab, I tore off the makeshift cover, wadded it and assigned it to the trash bin. Who knew I could have used it one more night?

                When I (pleasantly) inquired about why they didn’t show up as planned, the foreman told me about another crew at another place where one of the workers quit and left a huge mess that had to be cleaned up, pronto. He had forgotten about the absent glass until I reminded him. They attached the sheetrock—after having to go to Home Depot for “required” insulation, taped and mudded (I had to look up “mudded”) the joints and left it to dry.

                My empty window frame jury-rigging for Wednesday night was a lot simpler: push-pinning a beach towel into the upper frame.

Thursday morning, the third day, they came back carrying the glass, which they seated in place from the outside (sorry, irises, that you got tromped on by the young man) and caulked into the frame, which was how it was originally installed. Dried out lath mortar wasn’t the only thing that had deteriorated over the span of 84 years; so had the window caulking. No wonder the glass rattled in the wind.

On Friday, after telling me he’d be here at 8, they arrived at 9:30. I’d been working in the early-morning, shaded iris-and-yucca bed, and was just before texting the project manager, when the red pickup hauling the long trailer drove up. Again, I teased him, “I thought you told me you’d be here at 8!” And he mumbled something about it being when they told him to begin work.

But, at 1:30, after four days, they called it done, replaced the ceiling fan/light fixture, moved the 4 large pieces of furniture back in place and left. Instead of calling “Gracias,” I hollered “Thank you!” Antonio, Gesus and Luiz waved as they piled into the truck with Alfonzo driving.

What an experience! Now to get the windows washed, the book-and-glass shelves dusted and put back. . . I can’t even think about going through all the books and papers.

How about a nap, first.

New words & experiences keep us learning & busy

~Google images~

 

 

              Because my two novels are set in the Missouri Ozarks, I “follow” Ozark Highlands of Missouri’s blog. Last week, it discussed how controlled burning practices were not what they should be. In the information was the word “forb.” The blogger apparently presumed his/her readers knew all the terms. I didn’t, so I Bing-ed the word.
 

          “Forb”—herbaceous flowering plants that are not graminoids (grasses, sedges and rushes). Examples of forbs are sunflower, clover, daylily and milkweed. A peek into vegetation ecology.

            Then, there’s the experience I had over the Thanksgiving weekend. Since my daughter’s family would be in the Mississippi deer woods from Wednesday through Saturday, I was fingered to tend their five Black Australorp hens. Again, I had to Bing (alternative to Google) the breed to find the correct spelling. Daughter wasn’t sure, she said.

          Tending her chickens was a piece of cake! All I did was gather the eggs, check on the water bucket, check to see no feet were hung in the wire, go inside, wash the eggs, stick ‘em in the fridge. Feeding/watering the indoor/ outdoor cats—and I was done. Fun.
 

          I love Bill White’s column in this paper, especially when he tells of doing things around the house himself. He and Cupcake get into it at times, don’t they?

          I, too, try to do things around here myself—not because I can’t afford to have it done, but because I like the challenge. Of course, I couldn’t EVER and wouldn’t EVER do re-laying of carpet, re-finishing hardwood floors, or laying tile in the kitchen like I hired done this past summer.

         But the living room ceiling was a different matter, I thought. At two different times, after several days of rain, some of the 70s-era Celotex tiles fell. The original textured plaster (from 1932) painted a light green came into view. Immediately, I knew I would not replace those fallen tiles. Thus began months of intermittent removal of the myriad squares. Then the grasping and twisting of the 40-year-old staples out of the wood strips (1 by 4s) Dad had fastened end to end and nailed through the plaster to the studs in the l-o-n-g room. Every eight inches of ceiling is another parallel set of boards, supposedly added to keep any more of the plaster from falling.

 

            Pulling staples pales in comparison with the prospect of repairing the ceiling where the original plaster fell. The shape of Africa, that hole shows the laths and the old cement between them and spreads under six of the boards. I would need nearly one-half inch of filler––for unlike today’s plaster coating, this stuff is thick. I looked on the internet, gathered some information on materials I would need. I bought a can of mix-it-yourself plaster of paris along with a sponge and spreader. But all that sits as yet untouched.

            I’ve had other ideas about how to repair it without all the aforementioned stuff. Maybe next week I can show what I did. The photo is someone else's ceiling.
 

           Meanwhile, onward in the rush to Christmas.