Last time I already told you it was time for stucco and possibly paint on the walls.
Let’s start with stucco!
Stucco in progress
Every time I have to get used to the primer used for the stucco, because it’s red:
And preparing for stucco also comes with a lot of tools and stuff.
Because we have a lot of angles and corners in the living room, stucco has to be done one wall at a time. On the next picture you can see the fist wall done. As you can see everything that is not a wall needs to be covered and taped…
Smooth walls and stucco everywhere
Stucco is so great because every room looks 100% better:
The stucco is still very wet and grey on this picture. And of course we sat on our red chairs again (which have been in nearly every room already).
Watching stucco dry
One big issue with the stucco: it was COLD! Think five degrees C by day and even colder by night (we don’t have central heating yet…).
The stucco holds liters and liters of water which has to evaporate. So not only the walls are cold and wet, the air is as well. And this means pretty much everything you put in the room gets damp.
And if you think this dries fast? You’d be wrong. On parts where the stucco is on plasterboard the layer of wet material is about 2 – 3 mm thick, so this dries pretty fast (in two or three days).
But brickwork takes a lot longer. We also had a few parts where the wall receded and the stucco was super thick:
See that hole? That is the hole where a fireplace will be eventually. That pink stick is 10 cm long. I put it there so you can get an idea of the thickest layer of stucco.
Can you imagine the drying times of these parts?!
The result after stucco in the living room
But the cold is totally worth it, because our living room has had a complete make-over.
Time for paint
With the stucco done I could start on all the paintwork. And maybe you can tell from the picture a) painting the window frames would be no easy picknick and b) the window frames really needed a proper paint job:
On coat of primer on just one window frame later it shows a big difference already!
And yes, for primer I use tape. It makes life a lot easier and faster. I will peel back the tape after priming to get a nicer finish on the actual paint.
Fingers crossed my skills are up to par for painting….
After the first coat of primer I decide it needed another coat. So light sanding in between and go!
In case you wonder: yes, we also use the living room during painting. And it looks like this during the day. No neat homemaking here…
Final priming
So after another coat of priming we were ready for Christmas! It’s dark and snowy outside and this was the biggest tree we could manage this year.
This is where I leave you for this update.
Soon you can expect another one for the living room, because progress is in the making!