32 TYBEE BEACHCOMBER | FEB 2019
D.I. Why?
By Jimmy Prosser
Feeling a bit ambitious this off season, I thought I would tackle a little home improvement project myself (well, the cat helped, sort of, he
ate a nail). Now I know what you’re thinking - Jimmy, this is a bad idea. At times I would agree. As it turns out I am not handy. I am a dreamer,
I am not a doer.
Due to a leak in the apartment above me, the drywall between my front door and front windows had become warped, pulling away from the
molding, and had bubbled. While my landlord agreed to replace the drywall, I thought, “Why not try to Shiplap it?” The worst case would be I
would screw it up and my landlord would still replace the drywall. For this project I needed boards, and to my luck, the Beachcomber is delivered
on a pallet, which worked perfectly.
Now I lucked out big time, the wall is 19 inches wide, each board was 40 inches, so I got two wall panels (26 panels) off the pallet. I cut each
board and nailed them to the wall. Horrible idea. They didn’t stick and they kept falling out, so off to T.S. Chu’s I went to get some wood glue
($2.88 including tax is all I spent on this project). I glued and nailed each board into place, completely forgetting that glue runs, and it got all
over the floor. I also glued the light switch into the ‘on’ position, but I thought, “It’s cool, I’ll just unscrew the light bulbs when I want to go to
bed.” I recommend if you get glue on the floor, let it dry and then scrape it up. I made a bigger mess trying to clean it wet.
Once the boards were good and secured to the wall, I used dry wall putty to fill in the holes left by the nails from when my wall was just a
pallet. I intended on painting this wall, so dry wall putty worked just fine. If you want to stain your wall I would use wood putty. I didn’t have any
wood putty, but this dry wall putty was left over from when I thought I could get a larger apartment by tearing out the wall between my bathroom
and the adjacent bathroom in the apartment next to me (it did not go as planned). Also, cats like to eat dry wall putty. I asked Alexa, and she
said it was not harmful, so I felt pretty confident that I was going to be a great pet owner with a really cool wall.
Once the putty had dried, I sanded it down (which makes a huge mess) and the dust got stuck in the glue on the floor. I probably should have
put down a tarp. A quick wipe off with a damp cloth, then it was time to paint. I went with Kilz and just a flat white. I used a brush because
I couldn’t find a roller, and I wasn’t going to spend more than $3 on this project. I painted the front door and surrounding trim as well, so
everything matched. Overall I’m really happy with the outcome.
If I were to do this again I would ask someone to assist me, it would have gone quicker if I had another person. I also would put a tarp down,
since I got glue, dust and paint on everything (yes, I got white paint on my brown living room chair in two places!).
If you have a D.I. Why? you’d like to share with us, shoot us an email: info@tybeebeachcomber.com.
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