The Skim Coat

Megan and I are back from the house. Today, we put in a good eight hours working. My dad taking down wallpaper in the master bedroom, my mom removing old caulk from the bathroom tub, my grandpa and brother pulling out English Ivy, and Megan and I removing glue from the family room. We did it. All the glue is gone. Unfreakin' believable. It took us a good five more hours today. We scrubbed the walls with scotch-brite pads forever. It was such a feeling of accomplishment when we finished, I couldn't believe it was over.

Earlier in the day we stopped at Sears Hardware to get everything I would need to put a skim coat on the ragged walls. Joint compound, knife, compound trough thingy, tape, sand paper, more dropcloths, and uncountless other stuff. We even found a metal table on sale for $25.00. Crazy.

So after all the glue was gone, I could finally use the stuff we purchased. I began by taping all the trim and walls. Then I dug into the 5 gallon bucket of joint compound. I can now see why it is called mud. It really has a quite pleasant consistency and texture. I loaded up the trough, mixed in a tiny bit of water with a small putty knife, and finally dug in with the big knife. The first few passes were kind of rough, but after a while, I learned how to "feel" the right amount of mud to put on the walls. I bet the people that do this for a living could do it blindfolded! By 8:30, I was ready to quit, but I had covered the majority of one whole wall. Finally, our walls are starting to look like walls rather than an art project gone seriously wrong. I can't wait to get back at it. Skim coating is way more fun that scraping and scrubbing off glue.

Tom