Hey Ho. Last month my washing machine broke. During the spin cycle the machine sounded like a jet engine and it sounded like something was clunking around in it. When I called my favorite repair guys at Mars Appliance and told them the symptoms, they told me to get a new washer -it was a broken bearing, expensive to fix and a poor investment on an almost 10 year old machine.
Anyhoo, replacing that machine created a buffet of shit sandwiches -all driven by the fact that my replacement machines are larger than the ones I had and would not fit properly under the built-in folding table.
Ok, so I'd be recreating a shelf like the one already there. That's not beyond my skill set! -I could get all the plywood pre-cut and could screw it together just like I did here. I began by taking down the nifty shelf I fashioned which was holding sheets, and then Oliver and I ripped out the existing folding shelf. Let me tell you, that mother weighed a ton and was really effing wedged in there.
Ok, so all the current frontload machines are fucking enormous with the exception of the compact European style ones by Bosch and Miele which are a nonstarter for American serial laundress like myself. I would have replaced my washer with the same size if I could have but of course that model is no longer made (it had like a 3.4 cu capacity which was fine for me, the new ones are 4.3 and up). This new size dilemma also meant that unless I wanted a mismatched set with two different heights, I was in the market for a new dryer as well. Lucky me, I guess.
To make room for my new monstrosities the shelf above was going to have to be higher and deeper. Another measure I threw in at this juncture was to turn the gas line 90 degrees so I could fit the machines a little closer to the wall because they were about 5" deeper than the old.
My plumber did this for me in like 5 minutes. In the end I only really needed to raise the shelf by like 1/2" (grrrrrr) so I tacked on a strip on top of the existing wall supports at the rear, put in new, longer supports along the perpendicular walls and got a new support piece of plywood cut to the right height and installed that.
Let's fast forward a bit. Here is the new shelf installed (and the new washer and dryer -Maytags with a direct drive and 10 year warranty). Like my old shelf, it is two sheets 3/4" baltic birch plywood screwed together with an exposed edge. It weighs a ton and is jammed in there like nobodies business. The new shelf is 33" deep to the old one's 26". I let the machines hang out a bit in front because I was worried that anything deeper on the shelf would just overwhelm the room.
So everything when pretty smoothly up until this point except for the damage to the wall caused during demo and installation of the new shelf. Closer inspection revealed that, to my horror, the paint in this room peels just as easily as it did in Ethan's room.
Nooooooooooooooooo. It just strips right off.
I don't know enough about the technicalities of painting to confidently know why this is happening, but I do have my theories based on how the paint peels.
First of all the primer and the paint readily strip off the joint compound all in one. I guess that this is happening either because the wall was primed before the joint compound fully cured or the wall was not properly cleaned of dust prior to the primer being applied. As to why the paint peels from the primer, this seems like more of a failure of the product than a mistake in the application? or was there a lot of dust on the walls which interfered with adhesion? Could the paint have been thinned? Whatever the cause it is a bummer because...
Yes, I stripped the whole room and now I need to skim coat everything in order for my new paint job not to look like a train wreck.
First I'll prime everything, sand the table and cover it in paper and then get to it, I bought one of those Magic Trowels and can't wait to see how it works.
p.s. If anyone has some theories/experience with this paint adhesion situation please weigh in.
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