Blood on the Wall, Dust Everywhere

I don’t mean to boast, but we’re quite good at the messy project stuff like grinding concrete, refinishing floors, insulating walls. The kind of project where you literally eat and breathe your handiwork.

But as we set out to finish our living room walls, we were determined that this wouldn't be one of those projects.

Leah finally finished slapping drywall mud on our ugly living room walls, allowing us to eagerly start the tedious process of sanding them flat and smooth. We bought a big Shop Vac and a neat wall sanding attachment, so all that dust would get sucked up instantly. But just to be safe, we covered our furniture, put a plastic sheet up over the kitchen entryway and wore our facemasks.

You know, just to be safe.



The thing worked like a dream. Of course, a little dust went airborne but the bulk of it went right into the vac. And the walls were looking good. Some areas took a little more work than others, but we were making real progress.

An hour into it, we cleaned out the Shop Vac and started sanding again. Fifteen minutes later we were choking on clouds of dust and fleeing our house. Turns out we didn’t put the filter on right, so the blower on the vacuum expelled not just hot air, but loads of drywall dust. It took us fifteen minutes to decide that the increased dust wasn't just our imagination.

Lesson learned.

A little worse for the wear but not deterred, Leah went at it with vigor, while I held the shop light so she could see the imperfections. That’s when I noticed this nice red streak.



“Um, Leah, are you bleeding?”

She screams “What!?” in her annoyed voice, trying to hear me over the vacuum motor. I pointed to her blood on the wall. She found the cut on her finger, wiped it on her work shirt and kept on sanding. That’s my girl.

She bandaged it later on when she felt like taking a break, though during the course of the day found a way to nick herself a few more times with that sanding screen.



The sanding screen with vacuum attachment only got us so far because it left slight but noticeable grooves in the wall. We had no other option but to resort to tried and true sandpaper. And that meant our hands, shoes, floor and everything else got coated in a fine white powder.

I’m not trying to boast or anything, but we have lots of experience at messy projects like wall sanding. The kind of projects where you eat and breathe your handiwork.