Seems like just about everyone I know is doing some sort of home reno work.

Now don\’t get me wrong, there\’s always that awesome sense of accomplishment that comes with doing something yourself.  I\’m also VERY stubborn!  Also picky.  Very. Picky.

I like things to be done my way OK?

OK for real though, my slumlord landlord is a douchebag.  The property manager is nice, but up to her armpits in buildings and tends to get sidetracked.

A lot.

So needless to say, if I can fix it myself.  I do.

Because it\’s easier for me to just knock the price off my rent and send her in the receipts for minor repairs.  So when I first moved in here, there was some minor (or at least appeared to be) water damage to my hallway ceiling.  Of course she said she would get someone in to fix it.  Hell even the \”handyman\” said he would come in and fix it for me.  Mind you this was after waiting 3 weeks for the installation of my new water heater oh and 6 months of having almost NO heat!

So I got sick of the yellow hall/kitchen area and decided to paint.  Painters tape is your friend.  Except for mine, because well hell that would be easy and make sense.  So in spite of my using one of those nifty painting tools that pretty much ensures that you WON\’T get paint on your ceiling, molding, whatever and gives you a nice clean line…  My almost 6 feet tall, impatient over zealous self almost ALWAYS hits the freaking ceiling with paint.

Of course my ceiling is apartment white and the color on the walls?  A nice dark mocha color.  So while I did make a valiant effort to clean the shit off, my mess off the ceiling, it would seem that I missed a spot and likely stopped giving a shit  got sidetracked thought awe hell I can paint over that.  Which I totally can, although that would mean taking care of the peeling ceiling in the middle of the hall.

Do. Not. Want.

So I let it go, much to my OCD\’s dismay.  Pete even offered to fix it for me, I blew him off by saying that I wasn\’t sinking anymore money/time/effort into this place when it\’s my landlords problem to have this shit fixed.  Not mine. Except I of course was not satisfied with the shade of my accent wall/ceiling color variation.  I wanted it to be much lighter.  I thought well, the hallway isn\’t that long and I hate the paint on the ceiling because it looks like crap!

So I thought I would tackle this project by myself.

That was a huge mistake.

You see, last summer when I was dating John he came over beofre I got home and sent me a text to inform me that there was a flood in my hallway.

Awesome.

Which made it even worse.  It\’s blatantly obvious to me that upon close inspection this wasn\’t the first time that this has happened.  So Sunday night I got the bright idea to fix it myself.  Because I was sick of it, and the property manager told me that it was OK to tackle minor repair projects on my own.  Actually I think she prefers it because she knows it\’s just the cost of the materials and nothing else.

What I thought was going to be a simple patch job, has turned into an epic nightmare!  You see, the water damage has made the sub flooring above (I live in the sub basement) and my ceiling very soft.  Not soft enough to shove my finger into my neighbors bathroom above, although I fear that someday it\’s going to leak again and their tub\’s going to land in my hallway.  So I have stripped away the previous crap that lay beneath and have slowly layered up the plaster and it\’s mostly even.  Far from perfect but hell in order to make that sucker straight the cost would be exponential and you know what?

I don\’t own the place, so I don\’t care!

Plastering was easy, I have it down to a partial science now.  One that requires minimal sanding when finished.  Usually.  Except this time, I didn\’t factor in air bubbles.  Usually my patch jobs are small holes and minor things.  While this isn\’t huge by any means it was still a lot of freaking work!  I have minimal tools to get the job done so long story short, after layering on an ass-load of plaster I sanded the ceiling down by hand.

I was covered from head to toe in dust!  It looked like a 50lb bag of flour have exploded all over me and my hall.  Lesson to be learned here:

Drop cloths are not only your friends, they cover all your shit oh and the un-bleached canvas ones make great fabric to reupholster your sofa with!