Dust Ourselves Off

As I explained before, we were staying at some friends while our drywallers finished up last week. We had decided to move back to the disaster zone on Friday, after work. Alex had gone back up on the Thursday and noted that the kitchen was usable and that the whole place wasn't too bad. When we got up to the house, we were a little disappointed to find that there were a few problems with the mudding that needed to be sorted out. Also, the tools, supplies and scaffolding used by the drywallers were all still piled in our living room!  I called Bruce and left him a message expressing our concerns. We were really pleased when he showed up early on Saturday to take care of everything. With all the tools, etc. gone and the little issues cleaned up, we had the place ready to paint. Well, not quite.

All those boxes of drywall compound were now distributed throughout the house in a not-so-thin layer of fine dust covering everything. Think... bathtub, toilets, bedding, underwear, floors, walls, cupboards, food, etc. and you start to get the idea. We had lots of cleaning to do! Clothing and bedding all got put in the washing machine. We put the "super fine" filter in the shop vac, and then put in a giant vacuum bag just to be sure, and proceeded to vacuum the house, starting upstairs. This dust is horrible! It sticks to everything. We vacuum it up. We wipe it off walls. We wash clothes, sheets and blankets. We dust off the tables. It makes no difference. Within minutes, it's back! Granted, maybe not quite as bad as before our efforts, but it's back just the same. We want the walls to be relatively clean so we can paint them all with drywall sealer/primer. This, we learned, does two things. It seals up the drywall so that it accepts paint more easily and evenly. But it also puts a protective coat on all the very soft, exposed drywall mud that has been painstakingly smoothed to remove all the imperfections. Of course, every time you touch the wall with anything before the sealer is on, it leaves a small impression. So, our mission this week is to try and clean the walls (and ceilings) well enough that we can paint them with the sealer/primer to minimize the damage we're doing, and hopefully, eliminate the source of any "new" dust.

On the good news front. We did manage to get the main floor bathroom painted, cleaned up, and then get the toilet and vanity reinstalled. While my painting skills are not yet up to my expectations ("cutting in" is an art form in it's own right!), it is nice to have at least one room that's reasonably "finished". Hooking up the heated tile mat, it was fun to feel the nice warm floor under our toes. It makes our house seem almost "civilized", after the chaos of the last few weeks. It might only be a small thing, but it feels like we're finally on our way to actually finishing the house. There's a ton of work to do, but I think we can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel!