Loralee's Fancy: Step Back!

After a week or so of pretty much lazing around and ignoring all my projects, I finally decided to get back to work. And the living room is the project of the day, so I bought some plywood and started building...

Look at that fierce concentration!
I told you it's hard to drill holes straight.

I put together the first bits of a cabinet, and then it was time to make dinner, so I put it in place, and this is what I saw:

Yes, I saw Lindsey and the cat (who had to
inspect this new thing very carefully).

I saw that my piece is not centered. Or, rather, while it is centered in the living room wall, it is not centered in the hallway walls. How? How could this happen?

Well, actually, I know exactly how it could happen, and I knew it before I started the whole project. I just had a little temporary lapse of reason when I was tearing out walls a month or so ago. See, on the living room side I measured from the inside corner of the wall to outside corner of the other wall when I cut out the hole, but on the hallway side I measured from inside to inside corners. Like this:

It's subtle, but you can see it.

It was such a subtle difference that I didn't notice it until I put that wood frame into place. On the right side there was a gap of
12 1/2 inches between the wood and the wall, but on the left side the gap was 18 1/4 inches. No good-O!

So then I had to spend a couple of days puzzling out how to fix it. The obvious solution was to rebuild about five inches of wall on the left side. That is also the worky, yucky, stinko solution because I hate working with drywall. (In fact, I don't know anybody who likes to do drywall... No, that's not true. I did meet one man who said he liked it. But he was kind of an old guy, and maybe he had dementia.)

Alas! The stinko solution was the best one. So I re-framed
5 1/2 inches of wall.

And I put up 5 1/2 inches of sheet-rock. (Fortunately we had enough scraps sitting in the garage that I didn't need to buy any.)

And then—Oh, for joy!—I slathered wall joint compound over the whole thing—from the corner of the kitchen to the edge of my new construction.

Well, all right. There is something appealing about squishing your hands and fingers into the mud. And spreading it all over the wall isn't so bad either. But then it leaves gunk on your floor that looks like a giant bird flew through the hallway, and you have to clean it up before it dries or you will be very sorry.

I dislike working with drywall so much that I slopped it on thick and textured it as I went, even though I know better. (The mud will shrink, and can crack as it dries. And then you really have a mess to fix up!)

You can still see the seam through it, but it's not half bad.
Except that it's the wrong texture.

After a Sunday of dry-time, Monday was the time for the worky, yucko, stinko part: I had to sand it down, so I could fill in the crease in the joint tape—and any other obvious goobers—with fresh compound. And then there was a good possibility that I'd have to do it again!

After the first sanding.
Hm. That stuff probably isn't the best for your feet.
It's worse on your nose, though. That super-fine powder
gets into your nose (despite the nuisance mask), and mixes
with your mucus, and turns the inside of your nose into
hardened walls that last for days.

I've done this all before. I've done an entire, big bedroom—all by myself. I hate it. Fortunately Tuesday's sanding job was minimal. And I found out how to do the texture so it matches the rest of the house. And, Mwah-ha-ha-ha! I am so pleased with myself!

This is, indeed, the correct texturing. And it was really easy to do. I was doing the dance of joy all afternoon.

The upside of all of this rebuilding is that I don't have to figure out what to do with the wires I exposed when I tore everything out in the first place. They can hide behind my 5 1/2 inch wall, just like they did in the first place. And I don't have to find a new home for my doorbell that I took down during the demolition either: it can go right back to the place I removed it from.

Oh. And I also patched up the old light switch hole in the living room while I was at it.

The cool thing here is that I could do a lot of the repair work from the back side, where it will be hidden inside the wall and I will not have to give it a beautiful finish.

So, this did seem like a big step back, but I am much happier knowing that my shelves will be centered and symmetrical on both sides of the wall. And, I have to say, I did a pretty darn, good job!