Last evening, I went into the nursery and with paper tape and mud, attempted to seal the edges of the plaster where I had ripped down the closet wall. I know all of that stuff will be safely behind trim, but thought that it would be better to try and seal up those ragged and raw edges so that they don't forever sift dust out.
I didn't care one bit how my work looked since it was going to be behind trim, so I just cut the tape to length, grabbed handfuls of mud and slathered it all over the tape and wrapped it around the edges of the broken plaster. Not pretty, but I think it will do the trick. Tonight I will attempt to frame in the hole and prepare it for trim and doors. Any suggestions on how to hold a 2X6 over my head while trying to screw or nail it in? I am using a 2X6 that is flush with the inside of the closet, so that it will stick out from the outer wall by a couple of inches. This will help me to move the doors further out to make the closet artificially deeper. the wall was originally built with the 2X6 studs on edge, so it is thinner than a typical wall. I am just going to reuse the 2X6 I cut out of the wall as my header. The only thing is, whatever trees they used to make studs out of, were a lot heavier than todays studs. SHEESH! I don't know when they started making dimensional lumber that half inch less but these are 1.5 X 5.5 or a bit more, but not full 2 X 6. And this house was built in the 20s. Later. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [email protected] Tel: (412) 268-9081
