Today's jobs:
(1) Ensconce the dresser & chest of drawers in plastic and protect their top surfaces from tossed tools by covering them with old lawn signs from political campaigns. Check.
(2) Scrape all the peeling paint from the part of this wall that's bumped out, and remove the moldings.
Most of the paint came off easily and in big chunks. I always think of my high school boyfriend when I do this sort of work. He had red hair and burned easily in the summer, and I could peel his back in sheets. He was a nice guy.
The doorways into the bathroom from the bedrooms are just under 6 feet high, a full eight inches lower than all the other doorways upstairs. I removed some of the molding around the doorway from the guest room bedroom to see what might be involved in raising the doorways. Decision: Looks entirely possible and not too difficult, but seek professional opinion.
Took almost three hours to get this wall clean -- half a wall really -- which begins to explain why I've procrastinated the job so long. There's a little patch at the bottom I couldn't scrape with any tool, so I fired up the rotary sander. EHN! WRONG! I didn't have the doors closed and the dust cloud spread FAST. Five minutes after I finished it was still hazy, as the pictures show.
Yes, I was wearing a mask and eye protection. But I need a respirator before I do this again. Now I'm going to go hose myself down in the manner of a contaminated nuclear plant worker.
LESSON: Stick with my plan, which is to scrape all the walls and remove all the moldings, buy a respirator, close and tape the doors, and sand all at once.
