November 21, 2011

My left eye

Rule 1.  Do not get plaster in your eye!

We set aside three days last week, Friday through Sunday, to finish the study. Gut the office furniture, finish the baseboards, trim the baseboards and the doorways, install the three piece crown molding, seal all of the seams in the drywall, and prime all of the raw wood in preparation for plastering the ceiling and then the walls. The goal was to finish the woodwork and plaster by Sunday evening so that we could move the office furniture back into the space in time for business as usual Monday morning. Friday went just fine. The room was cleared of furniture, drywall seams were sealed, and the baseboard and trims installed. Saturday started out great. The crown molding went up and all of the raw wood primed. Phillip mixed the base coat plaster for the ceiling and away we went. For a ceiling, the base coat was finished in record time, one hour and twenty minutes, and we were elated that we would not be working late into the night. Phillip mixed the finish coat and I climbed onto my ladders and began the slow and careful troweling. The mix was perfect, the plaster was just flowing onto the ceiling with little or no trowel marks. I was so excited about how well it was going that I suddenly forgot my own rules... do not trowel above your face. I was only through about ten percent of the job when my arm pulled the trowel toward my face, I saw it coming, I instantly thought you should not do that, I looked up at the trowel just as it began to slide right above my eyes, I saw the big glop of plaster sliding off of the back edge of the trowel, and I blinked. The large glop landed directly in my left eye. I will of course spare you all of the gory details, and suffice it to say that no amount of rinsing was going to solve the problem. Sound the horns, we are off to the Emergency room, where it was discovered that the plaster had lacerated my left cornea.
It is now Monday afternoon and I am not really able to open my left eye.  The vision is blurry, and I apologize in advance for sloppy writing as I cannot really see the screen very well. I did visit an Ophthalmologist this morning and although he told me I did a good job of injuring my eye, Yeah! I did a good job!, it is not permanent, and it will heal just fine. But let me tell you...

it hurts like HELL!

In my one eyed way I can share a few pictures with you today. Pictures from last weekend when we installed the ceiling medallion in the dining room, and plastered the ceiling.

The ceiling was done after the walls due to the fact that we did not, at that time, have a medallion for the room.

Everything had to be covered in plastic, and it looked like a scene out of a horror movie.

The medallion in place.
Note the gas pipe from which the Gasolier will hang in the center of the medallion.

All that missing is a secondary small rosette that encases the gas pipe.

The finished ceiling, one of our best so far.

This one eyed Pirate is off to have a lay down now and rest my eye in hopes of continuing the study on Friday, since Phillip is completely displaced and is having to work in the breakfast room.

As a quick parting shot... Our good friend Garry was here helping out for a week. He spent his time doing final preparation work, and painting of wood work in the Kitchen, the breakfast room, the gallery, and the living room. Lots of frog tape outlining everything in the picture, but it's looking more and more like a home every day.

Looking down the gallery toward the Kitchen. The bright green outline is masking tape.
#bobvila