Taping and Staining

This weekend April and I  made significant progress on the Kitchen.  April applied three layers of the gell stain, and I finished installing dry-wall where the soffits used to be.

Here is a photo taken after April finished one or two coats of stain.

Here is the dry wall.  It will be a challenge to even out the seams where the new sections meet up with the old sections.  It will be easier to deal with the seams along the wall because most of it will be hidden by the cabinets.  I'd like the seems to be perfectly hidden; however, it's not critical.  The challenge will be the ceiling.

Here is a picture April took of me finishing up the last bit of sheetrock on the wall

A couple people suggested hiring out the task of matching the ceiling texture to the existing texture; however, I have not yet given up on the idea of doing the work myself.  That said, I do have a neighbor that used to drywall and paint professionally.  I'll lean on him for advice, and if I run into trouble, may ask him for help.  

The orange discolloration you see on the ceiling is from a citrus-based stripper I used to remove some of the original ceiling texture.  The citrus stripper actually worked quite well except for the stain it left on the ceiling.  I had better resuts applying the stripper with a paint brush.  A couple weeks ago I tried a stripper that used a sprayer; however, half the compound ended up on the ground or on me.  Call me picky but I need a lot more precision and I hate it when the stuff burns a hole right through two layers of plastic gloves and leaves a nasty chemical burn.  In the end, I found the full-strength stripper to be a little better on the ceiling only because it does not leave a stain.  The citrus stripper worked best on removing the wall paint.  Plus, the citrus stripper left the dry-wall behind the paint alone.  The full-strength stripper however ate through everything, including the chemical resistant gloves I was wearing.   So the lesson learned with the full-strength stripper is to wear the best protection money can buy, gloves, goggles, respirator, hazmat suit, . . . everything.

To me, the most exciting accomplishment is the work April is doing with staining the cabinets.  She has experimented on the back-side of the drawers.  This picture shows the awesome results she has achieved.