Hey Hallway, lookin good!

As I've posted before, lathe and plaster is a pain in the butt. If you think walls aren't fun to redo, try ceilings. Not only is it hard to replace plaster ceilings when the 2x4 supports run this way then change to that way whenever it feels like it, but it's also difficult when the ceiling isn't level.

Luckily for me, my Dad's a pretty good bargain shopper, which is why we have a lot of things we may or may not use. If there's a sale, he feels inclined to buy. But occasionally he gets lucky and such was the case for this nifty new ceiling fix - tongue and groove boards designed especially for ceilings to give that wood floor look up above. Dad got a great deal on the ceiling panels, but with only 100 sq ft the question became where could we use it? The master bathroom ceiling was in desperate need of having something done to it, but there wasn't enough square footage to cover it all. So where else could we use it that needed it? The upstairs hallway. Bazinga!

Of course one of the hardest things when putting the ceiling up was leveling off the ceiling. Seems simple, but when the 2x4 studs in the attic run left to right for three feet then up and down for another 2.5 ft, finding studs to screw furring strips to is somewhat difficult. But once it was done, the ceiling was easy and simple. Measure, cut, screw into place. Unfortunately for us, the reason for Dad's bargain shopping was most likely the result of a special order which was returned to the store - with parts missing. There happen to be these little tabs which slide into the grove section and hold the boards in place by being screwed into the furring strips. Well, when the three boxes were returned, only one contained the tabs, so I only got about a third of the ceiling up before I ran out of tabs.

Regardless, the ceiling looks really good (even better once it's done and molding is put up) and I was really happy with how easy it was to drill through so I could hang the light in it's old spot. Here are pics before and after (as far as I can until I find more tab thingys).

Ladybug Invasion!

I know a title of Ladybug Invasion may raise some eyebrows - what exactly does it have to do with the house repairs? Honestly, nothing, except that every time I pass the kitchen/nook to go to my workstation/utility room to get a tool, I have to stop and vacuum up the darn ladybugs which have somehow managed to get into the house. They're usually hanging around the sliding door or the kitchen window, so I just drag the vacuum from room to room and vacuum them up until the latest group of them get into the house (and how they're doing that I'd love to know). Guess until it gets really cold I've just gotta keep the vacuum plugged in.

The last few days have given us great weather - I mean great as in in the high 60s/low 70s for Nov, yet at the same time given us 25-40mph winds (can't figure out why the winds won't blow during a cold and crappy day when I'm working inside so I can have a nice non-windy day to work outside on the ladder). Needless to say, despite the wind, I've spent the last few days working outside on the house, finishing touch-ups on the paint and providing disappointment to the squirrels who live in the porch by blocking off all points of access in the underlying of the porch. Lucky for us, we didn't even need to go buy the wood for this project - our neighbors took down our privacy fence on the east property line when they replaced it with one of their own and were nice enough to leave the old boards in our backyard. Thus, the fence is now a porch roof :)

Since Dad and I redid the northeast corner of the front porch roof, making it more of an actual slope so the water wouldn't collect like it had done in the past (flat roofs are terrible for that problem), it also meant we had to redo the fascia on that part of the porch since it was now wider than it had been (and also giving the squirrels another way of getting into the porch, and from there, the house itself). But that is now fixed and painted, so hopefully the squirrels will leave once and for all.

Well, I'm signing off so I can finish the master bedroom wall, which is just about done - one last final sanding and it will be ready to be painted. More to come later!