Faux pas.....Faux STUCCO?

First off...let us Kiss the Rain AWAY!

It may have been horrible that it rained ALL day yesterday, but today was pretty much best case scenario....the pools of water FROZE overnight and I was able to let my dogs (and visiting dogs) out to play a lot today.  This makes me really happy because, like real human children, if they are cooped up for a day they can run in circles for hours the next day.  Luckily I got to see them play a lot today :).

Faux Stucco!

Why would anyone stucco anything voluntarily?  Honestly I asked that question a couple years ago (the church next door is an UGLY unpainted stucco).  However, one of our neighborhood restaurants (my favorite) has faux stuccoing and I LOVE it.

Anyway, back to why....well when we moved in we had all sorts of crazy wall paper in our living room.  Thinking it would be easily removed we started pulling it away...only to find that after years of like 7 layers being piled on top of each other they began to coalesce into a paper horror.  After many attempts to remove it and many Googles of "how to remove old wall paper" I (yes this is MY fault as many many things are) decided to just paint over it...especially because it seemed the plaster would crumble if we were ever successful in removing the wallpaper.

So I read a lot about how to cover uneven plaster walls.  Some suggested ....guess what?...WALLPAPER!  And others suggested Faux Stucco.  Having sworn to myself never to apply wallpaper seeing its deleterious effects, I decided to go with the Faux Stucco.  Time will tell how this ends up, but I would much rather do this than take DOWN the plaster wall.  If you want to suggest this, I suggest YOU spend a day or two in a home where a plaster wall has recently been taken down.  Once you have the glorious BLACK GOLD (name for your nasty snot in the time surrounding the fallout of dry wall) you will never wish it on your worst enemy.  I'm for seriously guys.  

So here are the beginnings of the stuccoing. 

This is an up close and personal view of the stuccoing.  Next I will need to let it dry then I will paint it a base color, then a small amount of an accent color to give it depth.


By the way, today I thought I was having a stroke.  I kept smelling pickles (olfacttory smells that do not exist are a first sign of a stroke).  In fact, next time I saw Nate I asked if he smelled pickles...he sniffed the air and said "No".  I thought, A. I am having a stroke, B. my body is producing a strange smell (which cannot be because I ALWAYS smell of roses and sunshine), or C. I am going insane.  I insisted Naters "come closer" to me.  In fact, once Naters investigated this he too smelled the nefarious odor...and accused me of eating pickles and then tricking him.  Turns out the dry wall compound smells like pickles (ew).





It took me a while to get the hang of this, so it is likely that some areas will look different than others.  Soon I will need to go to Lowes et al. and pick out some colors to paint ALL the downstairs walls.  Yay!

I also worked with plaster today to fill the gaps between a drywall wall and a plaster wall- I didnt know it but lots of warm  air was seeping out through those cracks (could almost here it whistling while it worked...out our house)

Ta-Da!

There is a strip of plaster that needs to be fixed somehow.  Right now it is seeping air so I am thinking I will try to patch it with plaster (this will be a lot of plaster) or we intend to put a strip of molding down it.  This would create a nice stop of the transition of stucco to normal drywall.  

BTW, I like the plaster I am working with...but it has VARIABLE DRYING TIME!  Sometimes it takes it 20 minutes to begin to set (which is what it CLAIMS it should...) or it can take 5 minutes.  This could be user error though (okay it likely is...).

Another view of the new stucco.  Start to finish this took me 7 + hours.

Since the Holidays are coming up, I started worrying a little about when I was going to buy presents for my family and Nate's.  This led me to thinking about a topic my Dad and I were discussing while he was here....namely, how men do not notice details like women do, and how women normally tend to "orchestrate families".  Have you ever seen a man send out the Christmas cards (when he is married)?  Is it because woman take up slack easily and men just take advantage of it (or maybe just my man)?  I think my father struggles with this a lot...trying to fill a void he is not naturally inclined to fill.  

I suppose now I should mention I am HORRIBLE at sending cards etc.  I blame this on the fact my mother is dead and I was not properly trained to do womanly things.  Yes, I realize this excuse can only be used for so long and I am likely teetering on the edge of, well...it not being a valid excuse anymore.  I also suppose I sort of need to send out Christmas cards now I am discussing it (whoopsy).

But is this difference Nature OR Nurture?

I think it is partially both. I will say men should appreciate their wives more ;0).  (Quasi feminista moment is now over).  But seriously, that door swings both ways.  I mean...without Naterman who would open jars and doors, carry heavy things for me, tolerate my cold hands and feet, and tell me my food is good when it is not?  



Speaking of the Naterman, he spent the day working with the permit office, talking to contractors about our deck, emailing deck plans, and is NOW (at 9:35 pm) upstairs working on making our upstairs flooring not make you feel like you are on a tilt-a-wheel when you are up there.  Round of APPLAUSE for the man  candy!