Project #2 - Guest Bed:

More good times in the spare bedroom. More cracked walls and more excruiating skimcoating. We cannot emphasize the following point enough: Skim coating is a giant pain in the arse. Unless you are a plasterer, you will find it very hard to create a smooth finish with slightly-thinned joint compound. So instead you're stuck applying a thicker coat and then sanding it down. Sanding an entire wall produces dust levels that are simply astonishing. Our recent purchase of a decent shop vac was money well spent, as was Brian's respirator.

We made it through the first 3 walls, but the 4th presented additional delights. First off, there was a section under the mantle that was very badly patched. On another part of the wall, we were contemplating installing a stackable washer/dryer. We had two plumbers come over to look at it. At one plumber's request, Brian opened up a small hole in the wall so that we could see the pipes, rather than open up the chase in the bathroom since it's completely walled off in plaster. In light of this and ridiculous estimates we got for the plumbing work, we decided that a washer/dryer unit upstairs wasn't really necessary. So I had to patch that hole up. Those two side projects delayed completion of the painting of the guest bedroom until this past weekend (the first three walls were painted three weeks earlier.)

On to the pics:

Mantle area rework:
Post wallpaper, pre-skimcoat:

Add a little paint: