Skim Coat and Sand

While waiting on the porch to be rebuilt, we re-focused our attention back inside to our master bedroom. I finally finished stripping the wallpaper, which wasn't that painful and didn't take that long. It was just a matter of me realizing it wasn't going to get done without a few days of my attention. Over three days, I was able to strip the remaining 3 walls and wash them down.

Once I had the wallpaper stripped, I skim-coated all of the walls to hide imperfections and wallpaper sizing. The room is 13 feet by 27 feet (with 10 foot ceilings), so this took the better part of 2 days. Before sanding, though, I did a little research. I feel like there must be a better and cleaner way to sand that kind of wall space. I found the Porter Cable electric drywall sander. It's basically a 9" orbital sander on a pole, with a dust collection system. The cost was a bit more than we could spend ($450), so we were able to rent one from the local tool rental for $30.

I'm not a real good skim coater, but I can get the job done with a couple of light sands. We used the drywall sander for the first sand, and it did pretty well. I admit, I was hoping for perfection with the first sand. But, it did as well as a first hand-sand would have done, but Chad was able to sand the entire room in 2-3 hours with very little dust. I am going back in (as I always do after a first sand) and even out the low spots, gauges, and air pockets. We returned the sander this morning, so our next sand will be by hand. I do think, though, that the sander saved us valuable time on that first sand - it's always the worst. I would have liked to have had the sander for the next sand as well. In all, I think it probably works as well as hand sanding, but much faster and cleaner. For a big job, I would rent one again.

Throughout the week this week, I will continue to touch up areas on my first skim coat, plus do a second sand if possible. I would like to dream that in the next couple of weeks, we might have a finished master bedroom. Ahhh.

Update on the porch rebuild - the columns are in, and we are about a 1-2 weeks out from making it back on our contractor's schedule. It looks like we could have our new porch by the end of summer.