Getting plastered

I finally took on the job of filling in some plaster on the stairwell wall, item #101 on the never-ending to-do list. I've been putting it off for years a long time, but it really wasn't that bad once I got started. Now it's just waiting for the drywall mud guy to tape the corner and finish smoothing it out.

It's hard to tell exactly what I did, but everything to the left of that window trim moulding (the existing plaster is painted white, the new stuff is grayish) was just exposed brick. I had to build up layers of Durabond until it matched the level of the existing plaster, which was a little over an inch thick.

More drywall

I guess I never mentioned I finished drywalling in the kitchen too.

I'm now in the process of moving everything out of the drywalled rooms as much as possible so the mud guy has space to work. 

Back stairs

I finished repairing the old back staircase. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I'd imagined it would be, and it probably only took 6 hours total to complete. I built a box out of 2x8 and attached a tread before building the next step on top. They aren't to modern code, but since this is a repair of an existing historical stair, simply replacing what was missing is acceptable.

Having another staircase in the back is kind of awesome, and I use it almost as much as the front stairs now. In the second photo you can see where I've built in a drawer for a little bit of extra storage. The riser will double as a drawer front and will all but disappear when closed.