Drywalling the dining room ceiling

Sunday, Aug. 21: I'm a little late posting this, as I've been scrambling to finish the stucco on the outside of the house.  I am fortunate to have a big, strong son who's a good sport to come over every once in a while and help me – in exchange for a steak dinner.

We rented a "drywall lifter," a device that holds the extremely heavy sheets of 5/8" drywall against the ceiling while you drive enough screws to hold them in place.   If such a lifter existed 30 years ago when I built my home in Texas I didn't know about it – my brother Paul helped me hold the sheets up with our heads while we nailed them into place.  Needless to say, you have to have a strong neck to do that.

Below, a short video showing Chris hanging drywall.  We completed the job in less than 3 hours.



With a few more patches of drywall around the window, this dining room will be ready for finish work. I plan to put crown molding at the wall tops, therefore the top corners just need to be rough-finished with mesh tape and drywall compound. 

The biggest challenge will be blending the two ceilings together.  The existing ceiling under the bridge has a "knock-down" finish.   I plan to trowel over that and apply drywall compound in as many coats as it takes to get a perfectly smooth, seamless ceiling.  Then I will spray the surface with an "orange-peel" texture. 



Removing some scaffolding

In preparation for the final, color-coat of stucco, I removed the upper part of the scaffolding this morning. With the wood posts out of the way, next weekend I can "feather" the color-coat out to blend in with the existing stucco.



Above the window, and to the sides, I just need to put a very thin coating of LaHabra color stucco. I can manage that with a ladder.  Below the window, however, it will need to be a bit thicker, and I will have to use a screed board to level it out perfectly.

 


Once the stucco is finished – probably next Monday – it will be interesting to see how well the color matches as the masonry cures. If I need to touch it up with paint, I will leave the remaining scaffold to make it easier to reach the high parts of the wall.



Within a few more weeks, this scaffold should be gone and the outside should be finished!

The stuco fill coat

Sunday, Aug. 14:

I spent a few hours on Sunday completing the second step of the outside finish:  the stucco fill coat, also called the "brown coat." That is, I spent several hours on the wall, and then even more time cleaning up the huge mess that I made.

After troweling stucco onto the wall, I used a 1x6 screed board to level it out to approximately the same vertical plane as the existing walls.  When I apply the final, color coat of LaHabra stucco next weekend, I will again screed the board across the wall to make it as perfect as possible.

Because of the dry weather, I need to spray a fine mist of water onto this stucco several times a day – for the next two or three days – to help it hydrate and cure into a strong wall.

The "scratch coat" of stucco

Sunday, Aug. 7: After various experiments with a block-and-tackle pulley system that I purchased on eBay, I satisfied myself that I could safely hoist 75-pound trays of liquid stucco high onto a scaffold and begin to git 'er done.

Problem:  How to get heavy pans of stucco mix onto a shelf that is approximately 18 feet above the ground.

I added the highest level of the scaffold to make it easier to spread stucco above the window opening. I installed a heavy eye-screw into the roof facia that could support the block-and-tackle rig. The idea here is to mix the stucco on the ground and then hoist a pan all the way to the high scaffold and slide it sideways onto the scaffold-board.

I placed an 80-pound bag of dry stucco mix onto the rig to test the strength of everything.  The block-and-tackle cost only about $25 on eBay, but it came with a cheap, braided poly-rope that wasn't long enough (nor strong enough).  The solution was this yellow, 100-foot rope from Home Depot, which I threaded through the pulleys. This gave me a 7:1 hoist ratio – making it feel like I was lifting about 1/7 of the actual weight.

The black plastic tray is sitting on a piece of 3/4" plywood. I quickly discovered that the chains pinched the sides of the plastic, thus making it impossible for me to slide the tray onto the scaffold-board.  So, I came up with the solution below.

Necessity, the mother of invention: To keep the chains from pinching the plastic, I built a sort of "crate" using 8" carriage bolts, nuts, washers, and strips of wood.  With this rigid crate, the plastic tray slides easily in and out – important when it weighs 75 pounds and is dangling 18 feet above the ground.

Above and below: The final preparations involved covering the windows with 6-mil plastic and heavy-duty red stucco tape.

This is the top portion of the lower window, carefully covered with plastic and tape.

A messy, heavy tray of liquid stucco, ready to be hoisted into the air.

I started at the top and worked my way down. Spreading stucco is relatively easy – like frosting a cake, except that it requires more arm strength. Using two trowels, I slathered it on liberally – with no regard for how much fell to the ground. You cannot worry about the waste, you just have to embrace the mess and get the job done.   After smearing it above the upper window, I slid the highest part of the scaffold out of my way and worked my way down the sides.

I mixed the stucco on the ground in the electric mixer, dumped it into the pan, slid the pan onto the crate-rig, then lifted it upward. It was a joyful mess.

Above and below:  I was careful to bond the stucco tightly to the existing wall, feathering it with a wet sponge as it began to cure.

Final step:  Once the stucco began to harden, I scratched grooves into it using a small garden claw-tiller. This is called the "scratch coat" – the grooves create a rough surface for better adhesion of the next coat. I hope to do the fill-coat next Sunday, and the final color-coat on Monday.

If the color-match isn't close enough, I might have to do some painting.  Either way, I hope to have this scaffold torn down within a few weeks so that my homeowners association can give me the final sign-off for the only part of this project  that they care about: the outside.