The Plaster & I Are Both Finished!

The plaster is finished and I am beat. I said it the other day, and I'll say it again: Skim-coating plaster is the hardest job I do in this house. It is both physically demanding and technically challenging at the same time.

I have found that it is not too difficult to do a half way descent job at it, but to really be good and proficient takes a lot of practice. On an episode of This Old House years ago they were talking with a plasterer who does skim-coat over blue board. Blue board is like sheet rock, but made to accept finish plaster. He said that a new-hire will apprentice for 2 years before they will be good enough to earn a living at it. Collectively, all of the time I've spent doing plaster would probably add up to about 6 months. I have a ways to go.

So now the big challenge is the mess. Every room adjacent to the foyer has a fine coating of dust and the foyer itself has a very thick coating if dust. I put down a layer of cardboard and plastic on the floor in foyer, so that won't be too difficult to clean. The other floors, especially the stairs need to be wet mopped before I take up the cardboard and plastic. Then of course, there is just all of the tools and other crap that needs to be put away.

I may be finished with the plaster but it is far from over. Still, it is so nice to be done with that. I can start to think about the stairs.