make up your own "beam me up" joke.

Remember me talking about how I can't texture the ceiling until handyman Keith fixes the broken beam that's causing the ceiling to sink? (last paragraph of THIS entry) Well, he came by and fixed it. He drew a picture of what was going on up there for me... imagine a beam about 4x6 with a couple giant bolts going through horizontally. Now imagine the entire bottom half beneath bolts has cracked and is causing the ceiling to sink. Keith took a car jack and a 4x4, and essentially jacked the broken part back into position, then had a hefty steel plate fabricated which was screwed into the side of the beam in multiple places to shore that sucker back up. The ceiling is now about an inch higher. Yay. (btw, that's my version of the picture above, not his)

Now for the bad(-ish) news. As a result of above-described mess, there was a crack across most of the ceiling. In order to fix the crack, Keith strongly recommended that I mesh tape and drywall compound the whole mess. As anyone who's been reading this blog knows, I've logged more upside down time in there than most astronauts at the International Space Station, but it must be done, so I busted out my trusty taping knife again today and went to it. If I never mess with another ceiling again... anyway, here's what it looks like. I'm getting pretty good at applying drywall compound flat for minimal sanding (and way less dust kickup).