Itchin’ To Scratch

I got the scratch coat on the walls in the butler’s pantry today. Man, was that a lot of work. This is now the second room that I’ve done complete plaster job on, or at least it will be when I finish it. The upstairs bathroom was largely a skim coat job. The kitchen had some major patching, but there was only one wall that was a complete do-over. The downstairs bathroom was my first complete job.





This room is twice the square footage as the downstairs bathroom and the ceilings are a foot and a half higher. My arms just feel like rubber right now. I recall being a little sore after the bathroom, but not like this. The worst part is holding the hawk full of plaster. It gets heavy and my homemade hawk is not the most comfortable thing to hold. Then, squishing the plaster in to form the keys takes a lot of effort. In the bathroom I was working with traditional lath and you actually needed a soft touch. With this old redwood plaster board you really need to force the plaster against the wall to get it to fill the dove-tail grooves.

All in all, though, it went well. I have less waste with each plaster job I do. I bought 8 sacks, plus I had a half of sack left over from the bathroom. Today I went through 3.5 sacks, so I should be in good shape. I may end up buying another sack of the finish plaster. Tomorrow I’ll do the brown coat, and then do the skim coating throughout the week, next week.

If that happens, then next weekend I start pulling cable for TV/Phone/Network. It shouldn’t be too bad. All of the upstairs stuff already terminates under the floor just under this room. I also need to build a cabinet for the networking stuff, and finish stripping the paint. I need to decide on the ceiling, as well. I might do tin, but I’m toying with another idea. After that it’s the floor and paint. It could be another six weeks before I start on the big dining room built-in. Ideas are still percolating about that.