Tearing down plaster ranks high on my list of home improvement projects that I detest. Loathe. It’s incredibly dusty–taking down a single wall is enough to cover the entire house in an inch layer of powdery white dust and form a cloudy haze that floats indoors for hours. And it’s astonishingly dense. One bucketful requires two people, struggling clumsily to haul it to the garbage pile.
Plaster removal hovers on the list right around painting with oil based paint or using silicone caulking. *Shudder*–that stuff is awful. Nonetheless, it was a necessary evil and really, it was begging for it. Every inch of our century year old house were smeared with plaster about sixteen years before drywall was ever invented (interesting fact: Gypsuboard, invented in 1916, was originally called Sackett board. Wow. I know. Fascinating).
The builders of our home were probably so proud of the work they’d done and honestly, I’m sure it was marvelously fashionable when it was first completed but as the years went by, it lost its luster. It had served its purpose and had to go. It was done with loads of help from family and friends and often, a frantic mania to get it done, induced entirely by pregnancy.
It is a little bittersweet to finally be done knocking the stuff down and dragging it outside . . . Wait. What am I saying? Not bittersweet at all. I’m happy to announce the plaster is finished!
