OK, so we're well into 2012, and this is supposed to be about projects in 2011. Too bad. As many of you know, I've had a difficult several months. In case you don't, know, my mom needed emergency back surgery, which meant putting my dad - who had severe Alzheimer's - in a nursing home Christmas Eve (we live 1200 miles away from them, so he couldn't come home with us). Mom just came home 2 weeks ago, but Dad passed away at the end of January. So I've made 4 trips to Spokane in the last 3 1/2 months (one of them planned), plus dealt with doctors, nursing homes, funeral homes and all the details of settling an estate. Things have started to settle down now (pray they stay that way), so I can finish this up. And the work did start in 2011!
We had our kitchen ceiling fixed back when all the other water damage was repaired. We decided to not replace the popcorn ceiling, as it gets so dirty in a kitchen, and you can't do much to clean it or you knock the blasted popcorn down. So the restorers patched the damaged section and scraped off the existing popcorn. Then they installed beadboard. It was lovely! We debated for quite some time about painting vs. staining or sealing. We ruled out staining pretty quickly, as doing that once the wood is installed is hard, as the areas where you overlap or the edges might dry would show. It's one thing to stain a piece of wood from end to end when it's on a sawhorse, but quite another when you have to stand on a ladder! Imagine how much moving you'd have to do....
But we weren't sure sealing would work quite well enough, as we didn't want to do all the necessary sanding overhead, either. But a friend told us about a sander you can use on a pole, so sealing it was. I sanded and then sealed, then repeated twice more. On the third sanding, I got a piece of dust in my eye, and spent a few minutes figuring out just how to get my eye under running water to wash it out. I tell you this because when I was applying the last coat of sealer the next day - and I was within in perhaps 6 square feet of finishing - I got a drop of the sealer in my eye! My practice paid off, and I got my eye under water quickly. After 7 minutes, I stopped and called my eye doctor. They got me right in, and, since the product was water based, all I had was a bit of irritation on the eye. It was fine by that night.
And the ceiling looks great!
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