Oh Plaster Where Art Thou?

I've now moved on to the western wall of Grandy's Room and have removed all the paneling off of it and discovered several interesting things. One - there's some stenciling on a portion of the wall, and Two - about half of the wall is covered in a rough kind of surface that doesn't feel like plaster! And the stenciling is on part of it, and beneath the wallpaper. The rough part actually feels like cement, and seems a lot stronger than the plaster.

Grandy's Room: An Update

Been back in Mobile since Feb 2, and have been working on the room in the afternoons. Basically it's a lot of caulking, scraping, and mudding! I'm really struggling with not getting distracted, or discouraged. One trick I've been using for that is just focusing on one wall at a time and just getting really into it and doing whatever needs to be done to get that wall paint-ready.

Termite Hall doubles as Habitrail

thumpity-thump-thump thump is the sound of my alarm in the morning, but it's courtesy of the other, smaller, furrier inhabitants of the house, presumably squirrels. I'm currently staying up on the Third Floor, which is a converted attic, and these critters are basically using the space between the ceiling and the roof as their own personal habitrail. I inadvertantly verified the species of critter when I went searching for some spare drywall in The Unceiled Room (which is our name for part of the third floor that never got finished and serves as our catch-all storage area) and saw a squirrel jumping across the beams. I naturally backed out slowly and firmly shut the door.

I was awakened the other morning by a particularly longer manifestation, which actually ended in an ominous wheezing sound; yikes! I guess there was a battle for territory just above me? Found out from my aunt that there's actually clear space all the way from the basement, up the walls to the roof, so these guys can basically go up three floors, across and back down again, every which way. Must be fun for them! Now I can see why my aunts were worried about the new "holes" I was creating by taking down some of the plaster in Grandy's Room-- their first thought when seeing/hearing about it were (for both of them)-- "what about the animals?" To which I can now reply, no problem, since I finished hanging the drywall today.

Initial Stab at Grandy's Room

Sunday and yesterday I started taking off the decorative paneling in "Grandy's Room" (Grandy was my great grandmother) as this will be the room I'm going to move in to. The story is, the paneling was put up over 40 years ago while Grandy was in the hospital with a broken hip, and so they didn't have time to repair the plaster. Since then it has faded and become yellowed and though I have fond memories of it, when I picture hanging any of my artwork on it, it spelled "clash city". I've been careful in removing it, as my cousin Regina had the idea of making it into a room screen as a memento.