Crack! (another one)

I can't actually read, write, or think of the word "crack" without thinking of Mikey Rauchenstein, my friend from Alaska's brother, and the way he rolled his R and made a sharp "ck" sound at the end that would have floored my ninth grade English teacher's heart. Onomatopoeia, baby.

So back to cracks. We discussed ceiling cracks and our choice to go with a professional repair here, so today, we're giving a brief tutorial of how we patched a few minor, inconsequential cracks.

We have a Mikkey (Mikkelson) and while it is very well constructed, it shifts and settles over time as all homes do. When you add years of painting on top of the shifting, you get something like this in the space where two trimmings meet:

No biggy, but if we're going to a solid look, we want that solid to be solid. 

Here is what we did. We took some dandy white wood filler (so it would blend with the future coats of primer and paint):

found here at amazon

and grabbed a dob on the forefinger:

And pressed it into the space:

Then, we went over it in the same direction until it conformed to the trim's definitions.

Let it dry for two hours (though I believe 30 minutes is more than enough time) before painting over it. Just before painting, I took at 120-220 grit cut of sandpaper and smoothed it out, making sure to pick up the gritty bits and leave the majority of the filler.

It worked so well upstairs that we actually went over dozens of other places in the house where previous knicks and knocks had destroyed the stream-line effect. We found that if we were patient and willing to put in a few extra coats, we could actually shape it into a soft edge. Thus far, it hasn't shown itself to tend toward the informant; no bumps or current knicks reveal that it is anything more than wood.

Here's one last before and after for you:

Not bad, eh?


Happy Monday!


icj,
~j & hawk

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