Plaster Party
The Work Day Club of Eutaw lives again! This time the work day was dedicated to plaster removal, a task we’ve read about but could only dream of doing ourselves since our house was de-plasterified well before our arrival.
Okay, even I never really dreamed about plaster removal. But it wasn’t so bad. We got very very dirty, and then got to go home to our own clean house. Not so bad at all.
The plaster removal occurred at the house across the street. Last year, our brave and industrious friend Denise bought the house and began steadily proceeding through a long checklist of all the major repairs you’d expect from a wood frame house built in 1896 and neglected for the past several years. Foundation, electrical, plumbing, climate control, nonexistent kitchen, roof. Not least of these was a house full of plaster, much of it cracked, falling off the walls and ceiling, or previously (badly) patched.
We share two connections with Denise: 1. We have the same last name (but are not related, at least not in the last 100 years or so). 2. Our houses have the same original owner.
Mary Julia McGiffert Murphy Dunlap lived with her first husband James Murphy, a banker, in Denise’s two-story Victorian house. When poor James died at 29, leaving her a widow with three young children, Mary Julia remarried, sold the house (for $3,200) and built a new, smaller house across the street on her brother’s land. That new house was, of course, ours.
Darwin and I feel a special affection for Denise’s house for that reason. Our affection for Denise herself aside, it just felt right to work on that house, our house’s older, fancier sister.
The members of the (unofficial) Work Day Club of Eutaw convinced Denise that we’d all gladly come help with her plaster problem. Give us beverages and lunch, we’ll be there.
So she set the date (Saturday, which stretched into Sunday, too) and we all showed up.
Denise is living in Tuscaloosa for now, while her son finishes high school. Her goal is to finish the upstairs of the Eutaw house before he graduates, so she can move in and work on the downstairs.
Naturally, Denise wants to save as much of the original plaster as she can. She carefully evaluated what had to go and what could be saved. With some input from her volunteers (us), she decided to take out the walls and ceiling in one bathroom, the master bedroom and the hall; the ceiling only in another bedroom; and one wall only in yet another bedroom.
Let the games begin.
When we showed up Saturday morning, the ceiling and walls in one bedroom were already half done, and the dumpster outside the window was already littered with debris. The Work Day Club doesn’t mess around.
Darwin and I donned our heavy-duty dust masks, protective eyewear and gloves (mine were new and pink), and picked up hammers – the first of a variety of tools we’d wield over the course of the day. Darwin taught me how to hit the plaster at an angle, and I figured out on my own how to punch holes in a line to loosen a chunk, then pry it away with the claw end of the hammer.
Later in the day, Darwin climbed up on scaffolding with Ken – as the two of them always seem to end up doing – and worked on the ceiling with a long-handled, flat-ended tool and a similar one shaped like a giant fork.
When the ceiling came down, we shoveled up cardboard box after box after boxload of debris, toted them to the window, emptied them over the edge into the dumpster. My arms quickly learned the best technique for emptying the boxes – one hand grips the top edge, other arm supports the box underneath, lift out and over. The best technique for shoveling – stay low, stay steady. Scoop, empty, scoop, empty, scoop, empty until the debris was reduced to a small enough pile that we could gather up the tarp like Santa’s bag of toys and shake its content into a box.
Then we picked up the plywood sections and tarps protecting the floor, moved it all to the next room and repeated the process.
As we worked I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment that we don’t have to do this kind of work at our house.
By the end, we were all satisfyingly filthy. Darwin, who’d decided on a whim to clean out the chimney in the master bedroom, was perhaps dirtiest of all – gray-black dirt and soot clinging to his hair, face, clothes and even teeth.
(More Plaster Party pics here.)
When we finally called it a day, more work was left to be done, so Denise tentatively asked if we’d be willing to come back Sunday. We all agreed, though I ended up staying home to nurse my laryngitis/bronchitis/some-kind-of-itis.
Darwin came home Sunday afternoon reporting that they’d nearly finished. Now Denise can work on booking drywallers, and then all the things that will make her upstairs feel like a home instead of a construction zone.
Today, I am tired and the muscles of my hands (from hammering) and thighs (from shoveling) are a little sore. I probably have dirt left in some crevices I haven’t discovered yet. But I feel so satisfied and pleased with myself.
Sometimes I wish for a life that simple – work hard, get dirty, get clean again, eat hearty, go to sleep.
Okay, even I never really dreamed about plaster removal. But it wasn’t so bad. We got very very dirty, and then got to go home to our own clean house. Not so bad at all.
The plaster removal occurred at the house across the street. Last year, our brave and industrious friend Denise bought the house and began steadily proceeding through a long checklist of all the major repairs you’d expect from a wood frame house built in 1896 and neglected for the past several years. Foundation, electrical, plumbing, climate control, nonexistent kitchen, roof. Not least of these was a house full of plaster, much of it cracked, falling off the walls and ceiling, or previously (badly) patched.
We share two connections with Denise: 1. We have the same last name (but are not related, at least not in the last 100 years or so). 2. Our houses have the same original owner.
Mary Julia McGiffert Murphy Dunlap lived with her first husband James Murphy, a banker, in Denise’s two-story Victorian house. When poor James died at 29, leaving her a widow with three young children, Mary Julia remarried, sold the house (for $3,200) and built a new, smaller house across the street on her brother’s land. That new house was, of course, ours.
Darwin and I feel a special affection for Denise’s house for that reason. Our affection for Denise herself aside, it just felt right to work on that house, our house’s older, fancier sister.
The members of the (unofficial) Work Day Club of Eutaw convinced Denise that we’d all gladly come help with her plaster problem. Give us beverages and lunch, we’ll be there.
So she set the date (Saturday, which stretched into Sunday, too) and we all showed up.
Denise is living in Tuscaloosa for now, while her son finishes high school. Her goal is to finish the upstairs of the Eutaw house before he graduates, so she can move in and work on the downstairs.
Naturally, Denise wants to save as much of the original plaster as she can. She carefully evaluated what had to go and what could be saved. With some input from her volunteers (us), she decided to take out the walls and ceiling in one bathroom, the master bedroom and the hall; the ceiling only in another bedroom; and one wall only in yet another bedroom.
Let the games begin.
When we showed up Saturday morning, the ceiling and walls in one bedroom were already half done, and the dumpster outside the window was already littered with debris. The Work Day Club doesn’t mess around.
Darwin and I donned our heavy-duty dust masks, protective eyewear and gloves (mine were new and pink), and picked up hammers – the first of a variety of tools we’d wield over the course of the day. Darwin taught me how to hit the plaster at an angle, and I figured out on my own how to punch holes in a line to loosen a chunk, then pry it away with the claw end of the hammer.
Later in the day, Darwin climbed up on scaffolding with Ken – as the two of them always seem to end up doing – and worked on the ceiling with a long-handled, flat-ended tool and a similar one shaped like a giant fork.
When the ceiling came down, we shoveled up cardboard box after box after boxload of debris, toted them to the window, emptied them over the edge into the dumpster. My arms quickly learned the best technique for emptying the boxes – one hand grips the top edge, other arm supports the box underneath, lift out and over. The best technique for shoveling – stay low, stay steady. Scoop, empty, scoop, empty, scoop, empty until the debris was reduced to a small enough pile that we could gather up the tarp like Santa’s bag of toys and shake its content into a box.
Then we picked up the plywood sections and tarps protecting the floor, moved it all to the next room and repeated the process.
As we worked I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment that we don’t have to do this kind of work at our house.
By the end, we were all satisfyingly filthy. Darwin, who’d decided on a whim to clean out the chimney in the master bedroom, was perhaps dirtiest of all – gray-black dirt and soot clinging to his hair, face, clothes and even teeth.
(More Plaster Party pics here.)
When we finally called it a day, more work was left to be done, so Denise tentatively asked if we’d be willing to come back Sunday. We all agreed, though I ended up staying home to nurse my laryngitis/bronchitis/some-kind-of-itis.
Darwin came home Sunday afternoon reporting that they’d nearly finished. Now Denise can work on booking drywallers, and then all the things that will make her upstairs feel like a home instead of a construction zone.
Today, I am tired and the muscles of my hands (from hammering) and thighs (from shoveling) are a little sore. I probably have dirt left in some crevices I haven’t discovered yet. But I feel so satisfied and pleased with myself.
Sometimes I wish for a life that simple – work hard, get dirty, get clean again, eat hearty, go to sleep.
Labels: friends, work-day-club
posted by K | 3:37 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home