Project 1: The Guest Room: Day 1

One day I was sitting at the computer and heard a Plop! Didn't think much about it until five minutes later, another Plop! Got up to investigate and discovered that Plop! is the sound salad-plate-sized chunks of multiple layers of paint makes when it disadheres from hundred-year-old plaster and falls to the floor in the guest room.

That was two years ago, and today I have finally started on the fix.

Here's the room. (Pictures taken by iPhone so not the greatest.)

Of course you can't just go in and fix the plaster in a room. First you have to clear the room and, since I was using this room and its adjoining closet as my dressing room, move the clothing. Which means I had to clear out another closet -- the one that adjoins our so-called master bedroom -- to make room for my clothes. Sadly the master bedroom closet is not in good shape either, but I'm not going to tackle it now. I just scraped the peeling paint and crumbling plaster and swept well.

Most of the clothes on the bed came out of that closet and hadn't been worn in several years. I took them to Goodwill this afternoon. I kept a stack of t-shirts and sweatshirts for work clothes.

Here's the guest room closet on the left, in the midst of cleaning it out. The walls had been covered in funky old brown cheap paneling and painted white. I ripped out all the paneling -- took me about 10 minutes -- and wound up with the closet walls on the right.

           

 Here's a closeup of the plumbing in the hole in the wall on the bottom right. There's a bathroom on the other side of this wall, and this is the sink hookup. Good news, because it's leaking and is scheduled for replacement.

When I stopped around 3:00 this afternoon the guest room and its closet were cleared of all but the two big pieces of furniture, and I had a well organized closet in the master bedroom. It'll have to be emptied again to make repairs later, but it's clean and good for now.