The Big Cover Up

As I mentioned in my post from six months ago, (ok not quite six months but let's be honest, there's no amount of prune juice that could make my blogging regular so I'm going to make sure to keep expectations low) one of the den-doer-upper projects was covering that big ugly painted brick wall in our living room.

Remember this guy? Yep. It had to go. Jaydee and I debated what to do with this beast of a room separator since day one at 16202. The first thought was to get the paint off somehow to return to the wall to it's glory days of natural brick. So we tried sandblasting. Then chemical stripping. Then scraping. Then a seance. Alas the gray was not budging. So we had to change course. We decided to do what we usually do when we run into a problem or a mess thats just too big of a pain in the old arse to fix - we covered it up!

With what you ask? Well I will tell you. With something called ledger board. Jaydee and I scoured Houzz and Google images until we found what we were looking for and then proceeded to call around to various rock shops to inquire about the goods.

"Hiiiiiiiii yeah, we're interested in purchasing skinny rock that goes up the wall. Yeahhhhhhhh something that's like skinny and kinda thin. Uh huh. Yeah. Oh you don't have skinny rocks? Ooooh ok. Ok. Ok great. Thanks for your time"

Try again

"Um yes hi. I'd like to purchase rock to cover a fire place. Yeah like rock on a board. You have rock on a board? Oh ok. Right. Great. Ok. Thanks for your time."

Until finally we called a crazy lady. She was REAL crazy but also really helpful and when she heard our stumbling speech about 3D stone wall paper for covering brick she immediately knew what we were talking about. That's when we learned that new fancy term Ledger Board.  Next we went to visit the crazy lady at her rock shop and thats when we learned that she was crazy. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said she had 28 grey hound pictures in her office AND she was wearing a grey hound jogging suit. Yep. A grey hound jogging suit. We were in her office approximately 12 minutes before she got teary eyed and told us about Darla, the grey hound that was immortalized by a 4 ft by 4ft oil painting on her wall, and how she was so fast she ran full speed into a fence and killed herself while playing one day. But I digress. We got the ledger board - moving on.

We took advantage of the two able bodies and contractor dad who visited us over Christmas and guilted them into helping with a tasty deep-fried turkey and two pies. Here's how the process went.

Tape off the rest of the house with pink tar paper while little able body played with a helicopter.
Then cut.

Stick.

Cut.

Stick.

Break for video games.

Cut.

Stick. 

Cut. 

Break for video games.

Cut. 

Stick. 

Cut. 

Stick.

Calk (hee hee hee).

And viola!

I know what you're thinking.

Don't worry. Tile is coming....