Last week during the day I was in class learning C++. At night I worked on the bathroom. That’s pretty much what I did all week. The C++ class was a lot of fun to start with, but all day learning is hard on an old man. By the end of the week I was mentally ground down and having trouble with the in class exercises.

We had our bathroom redone – new tile floor, new countertop, new shower enclosure. I was going to do the easy part of removing the old paper and replacing it with venetian plaster. The paper had already curled at every edge and looked like no problem to remove the rest of the way. Twelve hours later, it was gone. The previous owners of our house had expanded the bathroom. When they did, they put up the wall paper before finishing the bathroom, so it goes behind the countertops, cabinets, mirrors, the window and door trim, and even the jacuzzi tub. I had to take a utility knife to it to remove it cleanly. Then came the venetian plaster — the first coat didn’t match the color we wanted, so the second coat was a different, lighter color (which was a closer match, but no where near exact). It took about 6 hours for one coat, since it wall all applied by trowel. Yes, my wrists have stopped hurting. At least the third coat (the top coat) took only one night. Saturday morning I started the sanding and burnishing. Fortunately I stepped back to examine my handiwork before doing too much of it. Imagine the agony of disappointment when my work looked only vaguely like what was in the brochure. Yes, in certain locations it had that polished marbled look, but only if you were about six inches away. If you were at a reasonable viewing distance, it looked like a very poor paint job. There was no joy in mudville. So now we’re considering what color paint to use. I like our bathroom a lot, but I want to spend a lot less time in it.

Tags: C++, Venetian plaster