Looking for the silver lining this past spring of 2020, and our stay at home orders, my office is getting a much needed ceiling repair, clean up and general update. While we had tenants here, we had a leak in one of the skylights in what is now my office. Fortunately nothing the tenants owned was damaged and it resulted in an unsightly paint blister that I’ve lived with for more than five years.
The paint blister was quite large, unsightly, but livable and low on the repair list…until Covid-19 quarantined those of us of a certain age. We had managed to stay petty busy up until April, with the re-upholstery on the Model A, but when that finished, we were looking at our project list. The complete gutting of our main bathroom was simply out of the question at this time.
So, why not tackle the ceiling in my office? Seemed reasonable, we had planned on using a pre-finished plank intended for ceilings and already had samples. Like all projects, on the surface it seemed simple enough, at least to me. The engineer, however saw the problems that needed to be addressed before the “pretty” part of the project. Like, getting firing strips up to make the ceiling plane, or level if you will. He found variations up to an inch and a half. Then there was the ever present electrical issues we have had to deal with in each room as we worked room by room.
The electrical problems never ceased to amaze, with hot wires left in the ceilings improperly disconnected. Other connections to other rooms making no sense at all. But room by room, the engineer has made code corrections and wiring is all correct and safe; which takes t-i-m-e, about two weeks of time. Not being able to just run up to the local hardware store, we were dependent on family or mail order to get supplies, which adds to the delays. All in all, not too bad, since we have no where to go anyway and there is always something else to work on in during the waiting game.
Finally, all the panels were up and skylight wells were perfectly fitted and the ceiling has never looked better. Well done. But since, I’ve been out of my office for many weeks, I figured we might as well tackle the floor, since the room was pretty empty. Flooring story will follow in next installment.
