The plaster disaster

Plaster. Brick. Smooth plaster. Original plaster. What gives? There are so many ways to treat a beat up, nailed into, painted upon plaster wall, but no one could agree on the right one. This one was over brick, so just knocking it out and putting up drywall wasn’t a choice. Well, you could have just put drywall over it I suppose, but yuck. No.

First we had our resident hillbilly, who went on a binger and spackled drywall mud into all the holes. Well, that was wrong! Conflict of materials! Then we were introduced to a guy who promised a plaster finish, but then went on to cover the entire back wall in concrete, that would never be converted to a smooth finish. (he says, you wanted smooth plaster? I can’t do that! But only after he had worked for two days, he was fired but the damage was done) Then we have the old school plaster guys, who want a lot of money and have Civil War era rhetoric. I couldn’t imagine sharing a space with them for a week. Then we have the concrete guy, who doesn’t want a lot of money, but wants to use drywall mud to cover the entire surface.  Now, I recognize this was only a few sentences, but they represent years of idle chatter.

What did we end up doing? Hiring the crew that our plumber’s concrete guy said was THE guy in town. This choice also ended up being dynamic. One thing I have learned from this whole experience, is that most of the time people say they can do what you ask them. They say yes to the job. But you have to consider these factors. Did they listen to you? Do they hear your actual words? You really do have to ask them about their process (this uncovers things like, “I will cover the whole plaster wall in drywall mud” or “no way, I can’t do a smooth plaster finish!” Sometimes these conversations occur before you have exchanged money, sometimes these conversations occur after work has been done. Anyway you slice it, it is very hard to figure out if people understand you or not. (I guess this is why you stick with absolute professionals, but honestly, even then…..)

Even with all that prior experience, we still walked into a hornets nest. The guys come. We pay them some. They buy a shit ton of materials. They do all the repair work. Things are looking up! We choose a plaster finish color. Then we say, let us see it. So they put on a patch of the plaster finish. Well, it is gritty. It has sand in it. It looks more like a new box store than timeless smooth plaster. It is a pretty color, but the finish is rough. The guy has already bought 30 gallons of this from Sherwin Williams.

So, are you kidding? You call this smooth plaster??!! (pointless comment) We had the choice. Tell the guy to eat it and go get the correct, requested material, or let him finish as is. I am still so baffled on where the communication broke down. I mean, the wall just needed to be fixed with the finish it already had on it! Not up for discussion! As I’m writing this, I still can’t tell what we should have done. But, I do know what we did do. We told him to continue. To finish the job. Get on with it.

So, the upside? It is very pretty. It looks rustic, like Mexico or Spain or Italy. Like a cantina. Not exactly like what the rest of the building looks like, but I can’t say I don’t like it. We also ended up with 3 five gallon tubs of it, so we could paint the rest of the building with it if we want to. The downside? It is not historically accurate, it collects dust, and it looks like a CVS. What do you think?