Sandblasting today, finally!

After much scheduling drama with our contractor, I am pleased to report that the sandblasting actually happened today. Because the place is so trashed, it was not eligible to just be painted or surface coated with stucco. They actually sandblast off a small layer from the outside and completely redo the stucco. I was not happy with the contractor's attitude about scheduling. I had to be out of the house all day, and had to arrange care for the dog and manage to get to an appointment as well as make a few other stops. I did not appreciate him keeping me on hold for so long. The good news is, the day did go fine as least as far as I can tell. I'm not sure they took enough off, but that is not my problem. They are scheduled to begin stuccoing Monday, and it should take 1 - 2 days. In the meantime, the house looks worse for the most part but actually looks better in some ways because the finish, although ugly, is at least even.

Here is a before shot. You can see the light blue color and we think it was yellow at some point as well.



They covered all the doors and windows with tape and plastic.



Here is the garage wall with a small amount done on the left. I was amazed at how fast it worked. They actually used a water hose that blasted sand and water. I didn't know about the water until we saw them start. It seems like a good idea because the water much catch much of the sand dust. Even without the power on, the hose was quite powerful. We couldn't stay to watch because it was SO noisy I could see it damaging your ears really quickly. The entire crew wore heavy duty headphone-type ear protection, and I can see why. The noise is part of why we had to be out of the house all day, and the other part is that the house is sealed against the blasting so you would be stuck inside with no windows open.

Here is the back wall of the garage after being blasted. You can see all the blue is gone and it is just the grey undercoat of stucco. You can also see the partially done wall shown in the last photo.


Here is the front of the house after blasting. As I said, I think it looks better in some ways, worse in others. I can't wait to have new stucco! The only left on the outside of the house after that is trim painting and removing stucco from the windows left by our prior incompetent contractor who can't use a tarp. (We'll also be replacing the brick on the front porch with slate or flagstone, but that's a long way off). (We'll be resurfacing the driveway too, but that's a long way off too.)

The sandblasting left this weird, greyish mud all over the place.



This is why you don't do landscaping until all the work on the house is done. The ground next to the house was covered in several inches of mud. Any plants we had there would surely be gone.


I talked to several painters, general contractors and stucco guys and they all were clear from the beginning that the place needed to be re-stuccoed completely (i.e. it couldn't be painted or repaired). I trusted that information given that so many people said it, and that several painters turned down the work because they said it needed stucoo (I would imagine if it could have been merely painted they would have at least bid on the work). It wasn't until after the sandblasting that I realized just how trashed the surface was. In addition to being way out of plumb, there were massive cracks all over. Here is just one of many examples:





An interesting discovery. This is a former kitchen window that used to face the side of the house. The sink was there at one point, and then later a 2-story apartment building was built there so the view was probably not so nice. The sink window would have looked right out onto the main walkway used to enter the apartments and the walkway was higher than the window, so everyone entering the apartments could easily look in. The sink and window over it are now on the front of the house. We considered re-opening this window during our construction, but it didn't seem worth it. It would have added minimal light, and would have been closed most of the time for privacy. Also, it would have meant losing a lot of cabinet space.





A bonus. The crew sandblasted the eves for us at no extra charge. I have to get up and look at them, but they may have saved us a great deal of paint prep, so much so that we may be able to do it ourselves. Prior to this there was just too much scraping and sanding for us to possibly do, but now it may be manageable. We'll see.