CRACK HOUSE

For months our kitchen in Pasadena looked more like a crack den in south central Los Angeles. Armed with sledge hammers and determination, we bashed down the walls in the tiny kitchen of our 1920's bungalow to create a cozy breakfast nook. Instead we created one giant mess. Overwhelmed by the enormity of the project sitting in piles in front of us we did what anyone would do...ignored it and moved on to the next item on our list. Too many cooks in your kitchen? Try too many cracks....even Stevie Wonder could see the flaws in our plan so we had to focus, buckle down and finish. My threats of going AWOL fell on deaf ears so we headed to the Home Depot and in one afternoon fixed our mess.

HANG ON...

To smooth over the rough situation in our kitchen we purchased a few sheets of drywall from the home depot and picked up a tub of sheetrock joint compound. Just the sight of this made me want to run for the hills but the process was incredibly easy! Now, maybe you aren't crazy like we are and tearing down walls in your house but if you want to finish off a storage shed, sheetrock your garage to make it look cleaner, etc. this might help! With a few easy cuts with an exacto knife and drywall screws, the new walls were up. To fill the cracks we used joint compound..basically gooey patch...to fill in all the cracks. Let it dry for 24 hours. Prime it. Paint it. Enjoy it!
TIME TO COMPLETE TASK: 3 months to put it off, one day to complete

COST: Drywall: $65, joint compound: $11.97 at the Home Depot

STRESS LEVEL: Moderate but once the fumes kicked in: LOW