Walking In The Cloud

MCM had warned me repeatedly that this sanding the ceiling mud stuff was going to be bad... really really bad. He just couldn't seem to paint the reality bad enough and kept repeating himself. Oh, he had my attention, no doubt about it.

I realize that Sunday is suppose to be a day of rest, but this stages thing and meeting time schedules for him meant dropping by in the afternoon and doing a little sanding. We'd tried that in the morning to get it out of the way. A little damp place on the ceiling called a halt to that plan and moved it to the afternoon.

MCM's repeated warnings drifted past my mind as I sat in the pew at church, and I had a sudden inspiration. It may not have been the kind of inspiration I was suppose to get at church, but suddenly I pictured a very sturdy all metal large square fan that I bought years ago. It was sitting in the attic and still worked. I just knew that I might help solve this dense cloud of dust problem if I could get it blowing out the window. I got home and headed for the attic to retrieve the fan. Sure enough, it did a lovely job of forcing the air, dust and all, out the window. I just hoped no one saw it and called the fire department.

At one point I pulled back the sheet that I'd hung in the kitchen door. I must have had the camera just right as the flash managed to bounce light off some of the particles and make it look like large snowballs suspended in the air. Lovely.

You can actually see a tiny part of that lovely fan in the bottom right hand corner of the picture.





I had to take a picture of MCM to show you how white he had turned. Check out his arm! His face had lots of white too. He would vacumn his mask once in awhile to get it easier to breathe. I took to calling him Casper.


At this point, he was pretty well finished with the sanding. There was just one more little thing he wanted to do. He retireved his HeMan Shop Vac out of the kitchen and took it to the dining room. Then he did the unthinkable.


He hooked the hose up to the blowing end and blew the dust off the ceiling! Gussie! That dust flew everywhere. What a sight.

After a bit of time with the vacumn, he primed the ceiling. The man actually asked me if I wanted to prime the ceiling. I gave him a long slow look and told him that I was not crazy and had no immediate urges to prime the ceiling. He looked a little dejected, but got out the primer and went about the process himself.

I was a little surprised after he finished that he cleaned out the roller and pan himself. I thought he'd want to know if I had any desire to clean those. I didn't, and I'd have told him so. Actually, I'm not all bad, I have cleaned some of those tools before, but I don't want to spoil him into thinking that I want to paint and clean up messes. I don't at all... and I do mean AT ALL.

One thing is for sure: MCM will be back bright and early tomorrow. I will have more progress reports. I'm sure the mess will continue for another two or three days. I know at the end of it that I'll love the new look.... if I can find it.