Plaster! Plaster! Plaster!

Welcome back. It has been some time since I last posted as we have been travelling north to the metropolis of New York. We rest when we are in New York like taking a bike ride up the West St bike/jogging trail in NYC on a glorious saturday morning!

Well, we arrived back in Enfield NC several nights ago and, as naturally, we immediately began to work. Myra stayed by the house to get our 2nd floor bedrooms and bath in shape and ready for painting (alot of cleaning)!

I began to tackle the "Yoga/Dance Studio" room which has one far wall that has crumbling plaster and a ceiling with some crumbling plaster pieces. I used a grinder to cut out a square section of the two ceiling areas that needed replacing. With Harry's (the carpenter) help we hung two new sheets of sheetrock and attached them. I got out my handy dandy trowel and drywall plaster and started to work. When you see the pictures you will understand my craziness. Upon scrapping the "loose" plaster, chunks of the topcoat plaster just fell right off. Pretty much the entire top half of both walls (on either side of the chimney stack). Thus, I had to cake on drywall compound over the entire wall. plus, the ceilings. Harry told me about a product called STRUCTO-LITE (great name eh!) which is a heavy duty base coat plaster for filling in sizable cracks and holes in the wall. But of course, this product is not available anywhere close by and in fact noone around here ever heard of the stuff. I googled US gypsum company that makes it and found a distributor, C&K Supply in Greenville NC. After calling to insure they did have it I took a drive today of about an hour in the pouring rain! Biblical that is!

But alas I got the stuff and brought it back and will start this process tomorrow. Meanwhile I continued my drywall compounding throughout the lodge including the yoga room, banquet hall, hallways and even in the theatre balcony area. I was a man on a mission to plaster the world...okay just the lodge but after a while it felt like I was plastering the world.

But now pretty much all the cracks and gashes in walls are covered and walls should be ready for priming and painting. Still need to do more plastering (probably with Structo Lite on the north wall of the theatre balcony. There was a lot of moisture damage here and I may take the plaster walls down in the balcony and apply a moisture barrier to the brick and then mount sheetrock/plaster back on top.

Did also find some old historic archive info from the old Enfield Progress papers about the dedication and opening of the Masonic Lodge in 1925. Will probably post some of this stuff tomorrow or by the weekend.

Until then, Get Plastered!!!

Drew
March 29, 2010