Just "Bead" It...

And you thought the cheesy tributes to Michael Jackson were over. Hmm... not so much. As a girl who took her Thriller Album to Show and Tell in 3rd grade, there's no such thing as too much MJ. I lie. I'm actually over seeing his name on my Yahoo account every dang day. Anyhow, in light of the number of hours we've spent with beaded board today, we had to find something humorous. Just "Bead" It it is. You see that faux tile in the before photo? We knew it was faux. We figured that that plaster like everything else in the house was adhered to the "drywall" below. I think we're learning NOT to trust our instincts. BAD idea.

So here's the real story: Keene's cement. Boo! Hiss! Two opposable thumbs DOWN to Keene's cement. At least for our purposes. As we've learned from trying to patch the plaster in the living/dining room ceiling, plaster is the fairy tale equivalent of an evil troll living under a bridge. Becoming a true, master plaster finisher took lots of training along with quick and steady hands. Lots of training. I think you also had to be very precise and detail-oriented to do it accurately. Anyhow, as far as I can tell, you wouldn't be able to create the look of tile without scoring the plaster after it had been placed on the wall. Keene's cement must've given you enough work time to score a larger area--large enough, at least, to mimic tile and produce a smooth look. If those floor tiles are any indication, Norma was going to keep abreast of the trends in her home! However, as a banker, she was going to be relatively frugal. Using Keene's cement to create the plaster tiles allowed for the look of tile for a more economical price. It has held up really well over the years. However, due to some flaws and the presence of lead paint, we needed to remove it or cover it. Covering it seemed to be the best idea. We used bead board in our last bathroom, and we like the look, so we decided to use a tongue and groove bead board in this bathroom as well. We truly thought this would be a quick project before we put in the new sub floor. Arrrgh! Haven't we learned. Quick and easy are words we really shouldn't be using. Ever. But we did. As you can imagine we jinxed ourselves before we even got started. Confident little devils that we were, (yes, were) we got out the air compressor and nail gun. Board 1 up. Nail! Or not so much. I wish I could show you the crumpled little piece of metal alloy that that nail morphed into. Oh, the compressor must be faulty. Create a little more air pressure. Nail! Or not so much. Nail 2 crumpled. As did 3, 4 AND the staples. So we tried the nail gun in some wood scraps. Miracle of miracles, it worked. It must be where we were nailing in the wall. Nope. Nothing worked. Pre drill? Nope. I think the drill started crying after the third attempt... or was that me? That was definitely me crying. My basic concern? Make the lead paint go away. And make it pretty.

Station break: I'll take a break here to address the fact that I understand I'm explaining lots more than you need to know. However, we want this to serve as a record of our renovation. All of it. You're welcome to glance at pictures and move on.

After much gnashing of teeth on my part, I had a brainstorm. I asked T. to just hang on for a minute and hear me out. We knew that there were at least two easily nailable points above and below the cement. Couldn't we nail the boards at the bottom and use some cove moulding over the boards at the top but below the chair rail and nail up into that? Add a little liquid nails and we should be in good shape, right? RIGHT! Hoooooray! Mrs. Maness would probably be proud that I do remember one thing from Geometry: Eureka! We solved it. So, after much ado we finally finished up in the wee hours of the morning. Before:

And after:

And it's on to the new sub floor.