Don't sand; wash!

I had tried the sanding machine Rose had left me. Blimey that thing is a beast! It has only one setting: Armageddon. I realised immediately that this might be a sound that would permeate into the neighbour's house. So the next time I saw him I brought the subject up. He had indeed heard it! So I agreed to not do any sanding in the evenings to keep the neighbourly peace. But he came up with another reason not to sand (yet); he suggested I first wash off the whitewash. Just with water. He said I would sand it into the wood if I left it there! And this would be yet another step in the endless ceiling saga, but well, a woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do. And washing is something I can do at all hours!

I got started. As the whitewash hadn't come off with the wallpaper steaming, I thought it would be quite well stuck to the wood. but it wasn't! It came off quite well. And it does make the beams look a lot better! Maybe I don't have to do an awful lot of sanding. And that's good! It's a terrible job. The machine is too powerful and very noisy and the vibrations are unpleasant on the hands and it's very dusty and you need to wear goggles as the dust is awful on your eyes, and you need a dust mask as you don't want to breathe it in either, and I want to cover my hair as otherwise it would accumulate too much dust, and altogether you feel like a bomb disposal expert in the desert heat, and the dust gets into the rest of the house too and it's all very unpleasant. A bit of washing is OK! And the difference is remarkable. I might do a double wash to get these beams as nice as they can be without sanding. And then maybe I don't have to do an awful lot of it!

 

After one wash they already look a lot better!